


the Gatecrashers

by anax imperator (anax)



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:47:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 59,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3632028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anax/pseuds/anax%20imperator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No good deed ever goes unpunished.  It wasn't like Dante didn't know that, but sometimes he forgot.</p><p>This is a sequel to the "Objective Uncertainty" series, and you should probably read that first if you haven't already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nero was actually given about three seconds of warning, when the shine of his devil bringer ramped rapidly brighter, and the flesh beneath the armoring crawled. He ignored it. Dante was due back soon, after all.

"You want to hit it like _this,"_ he told Patty, "so that it spins." He demonstrated with a slow-motion strike of the stick against the cue ball. "That way, wh--"

Patty glanced up and toward the window just as the front wall of the building exploded inward, a deafening crash of shattering glass and pulverizing masonry. Nero reacted instantly and without thought, bodily grabbing Patty and hauling her around so that the flying debris hit him in the back instead of her in the face; he ducked his head, and then staggered against her when brick struck him with sledgehammer force in the back and shoulder and leg.

 _"DANTE!"_ roared some _thing,_ and there was another crash that shook the floor as a cloud of dust rolled into the room. _"Face me!"_

Oh, shit. Nero clapped a hand over Patty's mouth before she could make a sound, and then almost cried out himself when he took a step toward the bar, the numb shock of the injuries crushed into his back morphing into stabbing agony the moment he moved. Patty clutched his arms, half-supporting him as he crossed the room.

He whispered into her ear, "Stay quiet. Get in the weapon room and close the door, and stay there, and stay quiet." Fucking hell, it _hurt._

 _"DANTE!"_ said the devil again. _"The son of Sparda cowers and hides?"_

Patty struggled when they reached the door beside the bar, and Nero let her go. "What do you want me to do?" she whispered.

"Stay out of the way, and stay quiet." Nero opened the door and pushed her into the room, and then had to catch himself against the wall when his legs almost gave out. Patty gave him an incredulous look, and he shut the door on her and hoped she'd listen to him and stay put.

The devil was halfway in the room now, roaring, somehow trapped in the hole that spanned half the front wall between the staircase and the door. Its long neck craned, a dark shadow searching through the haze of dust. _"Dante!"_ it bellowed.

Nero crossed the room toward his sword's case, not walking so much as falling in a controlled fashion as the thing reached an arm through the hole and pawed around. It spotted him through the dust cloud before he got to the sword, and with a howl it snapped its teeth toward him. The angle was wrong and it couldn't reach.

 _"Come and die, son of Sparda!"_ It pulled back out of the hole as Nero fell to his knees next to Red Queen's case.

The window above him shattered as the demon reached in at him through it, but it didn't try to come through the wall again and it clawed for him blindly. Nero got the latch open and his sword in his hand, and then the dust in his throat sent him into a coughing fit.

The cough was wet and bubbling, and the first twinge of fear went through Nero. No, no, no, now was _not_ the time for a panicky flashback. He had to keep his mind off of it. There was a devil out there that would kill him instantly if he locked up.

It _hurt so much_ to move, but he had to move. The injuries would take a while longer to heal, and he couldn't afford to wait on that. He sat on the floor with his back to the wall, sword to one side and ready. The devil's arm disappeared and its head, long and reptilian, came through the window above him.

 _"I smell Sparda's blood,"_ it said, but Nero was directly under its throat and it couldn't see him. Before the thing rectified that, Nero gave Red Queen a rev and slashed upward.

The strike was weaker than he wanted, but it nevertheless bit deeply into the demon's neck. It screamed, the sound one of rage more than of pain, as it drew back out of the window; two seconds later, the wall behind Nero's back thumped inward as the devil tried to break through it.

The impact sent an agonizing jolt through his injuries, and Nero tried to ground himself. He could breathe. He was in Devil May Cry. That was a demon out there. He was okay. This was not life-threatening _unless_ he had a panic attack. He put his talons to his chest. He could move, he was _fine,_ this wasn't a problem as long as he kept a grip. His heart thudded, fearfully anticipating fear.

The wall thumped again, and masonry cracked. Far less force was being put into this attempt than into the one that had opened the hole on the other side of the room, but nevertheless Nero needed to move. He crawled on his hands and knees to the doorway, and stood up there, which hurt _so damned much_ but the pain was starting to bother him less. Whether it was the adrenaline, or the way forcing the injured muscles to flex eased the shocked spasms, or that Nero was just getting used to the stabbing pain and paying less attention to it, it was less of a ordeal now to take a step and lift his sword. The change in position made him cough again, however, blood bubbling in his throat, and anxiety stabbed him in the heart. _No._ He wasn't going to panic, not here, not now. He wasn't afraid of this demon, and he couldn't afford to be afraid of the fear, either.

 _"You disappoint me, Dante,"_ roared the devil outside, and the wall where Nero had been moments ago thumped yet again. _"I had not expected you to hide. Do not fear me. I will only kill you and wear your head as a necklace. There are others who would bring you alive to be broken on the altar."_

The creature stuck its head through the shattered window once again, and Nero slammed it into the floor with his devil bringer.

It recovered instantly, turning and snapping at him, lightning-fast, and Nero dropped to the floor to get under it. Hitting the floor hurt like a _motherfucker,_ but Nero couldn't think about that; he punched upward into the demon's throat, directly over the slash he'd made. Again, the demon screamed. It clawed for him, turning awkwardly through the broken window in an attempt to reach him, which Nero evaded by moving farther from the window along the front wall.

Next to the door he stood up again, and coughed again, and the liquid in his lungs was getting worse but he was almost comfortable with it. If it was going to give him an attack, surely it would have by this point. He revved his sword to get it flaming, because that thing was going to come for him again and he was going to kill it when it did.

All was quiet, though. Nero waited, but the attack never came.

Eventually, the demon said, _"Come out and face me, Dante. I tire of chasing you like a rodent."_

Well, damn. Nero wasn't Dante, but if it was going to wait out there for him, he really would rather fight it in the street. He moved cautiously, peering around the edge of the hole and ready for it to strike at him again through the jagged gap in the wall, but it did not. It waited for him, coiled on the pavement, until he came out of the building.

The devil was huge, at least fifty feet long. Nero hadn't gotten a good look at it through the dust and confusion, only that it was dark and had a crocodile's face and long sinewy arms. Masonry dust clung to its head and arms and shoulders, but below that he could see that it was covered in black scales so shiny they looked wet. It was legless, but the shape of it was too thick to be snakelike; with the wet-looking scales, it reminded Nero more of a slug.

"Holy cow," said Nero. "You're going to be a challenge, aren't you?" He held Red Queen ready, and shook his right arm. That was about the only part of him that _didn't_ hurt right now, but that was okay, he wasn't that badly injured. It had been almost half a year since he'd last fought a demon, but it was like riding a bicycle, really.

 _"Your father never cowered in a hole,"_ said the demon. It slithered into a tighter coil, consolidating its position. _"I must say I expected better from you."_

It was on the tip of Nero's tongue to ask what the hell this thing knew about his father before he remembered that it thought he was Dante. He considered clearing up that misunderstanding, but decided not to; if it lost interest in him, who knew what it might do. "Hey, _you_ tried to sucker-punch _me_ by throwing a literal wall at me with no warning," he said. "I don't want to hear anything out of you about proper behavior." A cough wracked its way out of him, leaving a streak of blood on his talons.

_"I did not expect cowardice from a scion of the dark knight."_

Fuck this shit. "I'm standing right here in front of you," said Nero. "Are we going to duel or not? Because I have other things on my schedule besides you."

The devil might had been shaped like a slug, but it didn't move like one; it dove at him with all the speed of a striking cobra. Nero barely got out of the way of the snapping jaws, and then immediately had to fling himself the other direction to keep from being crushed to the ground by the demon's claws. His damaged muscles screamed in agony, but his body responded the way he needed it to, and he caught a second snap on his sword. The devil shrieked and bit down on Red Queen, trying to rip it out of Nero's hand, but he gave a powerful yank to slash the creature's mouth with the flaming blade.

An instant later he was struck and thrown to the side by the demon's lower body, whipping around like a tail. The impact when he smashed into the closest immovable object knocked the wind out of him, and shocked blinding pain down the left side of his body and through the injuries on his back.

When he tried to inhale there was blood in his breath and a stab of pain through his chest, and panic stabbed him along with it.

He jolted out of the memory of terror and agony when fresh hot pain - real pain - knifed through his right thigh. There was motion in front of him that, still half-blinded and half-panicked, Nero could barely see. With a cry he lashed out at it with his devil bringer and his claws caught on something, something that howled furiously and tore at the spectral talons hooked into it. Whatever it was that was stabbed through Nero's thigh was ripped out, and he felt himself lifted right off the ground by his devil bringer.

The memories rapidly faded, clearing his vision and mind; Nero remembered what was happening, and realized that he had the black-scaled demon by the tongue and had been hauled into the air when the thing threw back its head. It was frenzied, trying to bite his devil bringer but unable to penetrate the armor, and it raked its claws across him in an effort to dislodge him or grab onto him. When the claws slashed Nero it _fucking hurt,_ but he was fully aware again. The instant of terror had somehow cleansed him, cleared his head of any impediment. The fear was gone, and the pain didn't matter.

He still had Red Queen in his left hand. When the thing's fingers tried to grasp him by the legs he put a foot on the devil's knuckle, and used that to lever himself higher so that he could jam his flaming sword straight into one crimson eye.

It got a grip on him a moment later and Nero was torn away from the demon's face when it snatched him, and threw him away. He landed on his feet this time, skidding from the force of the throw; it _hurt like hell_ to use crushed and ripped muscles, but the pain was bearable. He could handle this. His heart was racing but there was no fear left in him. The irrational panic was dealt with and over, and demons never frightened him.

Most of the creature's bloody tongue was still in Nero's claws until the ghostly second hand vanished and dropped it, and the devil made incoherent gnashing sounds as it came at him again. Nero waited until it was almost on him, then stepped to its newly blind side and leapt to bring Red Queen down onto the gash over its destroyed eye. This time, the sword crunched through bone.

The demon went down, flailing, half-brained by the sword in its head. Its body thrashed, coiling and uncoiling, and its claws ripped into the pavement; Nero had to brace himself against the side of its head to keep his hold on Red Queen, forcing the sword farther into the devil's cranium through its eye socket, but the writhing was uncoordinated and he was in no danger anymore. When he ripped the sword out and walked around the thing's head, it tried to snap at him again but could only twitch.

"There's something you should know before I put you the rest of the way down," said Nero, as he flicked and revved Red Queen to set the sword alight. He coughed up more blood, and spit it onto the thing's face. "I'm not even Dante. You've been killed by Dante's minion."

It tried to speak, but the sounds were garbled and blood drooled out from between its teeth. The devil's eye rolled as Nero approached it; it was still squirming, but completely helpless now to do anything but watch him as he reversed the flaming blade in his hand. Nero paused with Red Queen above its eye, giving it a good look at its own death before ramming the sword down into what remained of its brain.

Once the devil stopped moving Nero hacked off its head just to make sure it stayed dead. The adrenaline wore off midway through the decapitation, and Nero simply _hurt,_ all over. Even his right cheek was hot; he hadn't noticed it happen and didn't touch it to verify, but he assumed the thing had caught him in the face at some point. By the time the demon's head was severed the whole area stank of dead devil, a horrific smell that only grew more intense as the minutes passed, but Nero was quite pleased. This had been a pretty strong demon, and damned if it didn't look really good laying dead on the street.

"That was fun," he told himself. Now he wanted nothing more than to just lay down and wallow in pain for a while, but he had a higher priority. He limped back into the ruined office, every step he took with his right leg like a fresh stab through the thigh.

Patty was still inside the weapon room, sitting in the dark on the floor, and she gave a startled gasp when Nero opened the door. "You did it!" she said, scrambling to her feet, and he had to put a hand up to keep her from throwing herself into his arms.

"You need to get out of the building," said Nero, and he coughed. A lot of blood came up, but it was thick now, red-black instead of bright.

"Are you okay?" she asked, and then answered herself. "You're not okay. Nero, look at you!" She reached for the hot slash of pain on his face, but Nero ducked out of the way.

"I'd rather not," he said, and he took her by the sleeve to pull her out of the weapon room and across the building toward the hole in the wall. "You need to get out of here in case the ceiling comes down. Come on."

"Look at you." Patty obeyed, following Nero out of the gap the demon had punched through the masonry, but her eyes were on his torn and bloody clothes. "Look what it did to you."

Again he coughed, and he quickly wiped the blood onto his jeans before Patty could comment on it. "Yeah, it kind of hurts, but I'll be all right."

"Is there anything I can do?"

 _"No."_ He let her go once they were outside, and he went over to a parked car that was dented all up the side of it. The dent was about his size, he thought, and this car was probably what he'd struck when the demon had flung him with its tail. That made him laugh a little as he sat down on the pavement next to the rear tire, and then he doubled over to cough up yet more coagulating blood.

"Nero," said Patty, her voice anxious as she knelt next to him. "Nero, are you going to be okay?" She pulled his coat aside and then the edge of one of the slashes through his jeans.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," said Nero. "Stop that, just let me rest a minute." He turned away from her; he already knew he was hurt and didn't really need Patty to tell him that. Red Queen reeked of petroleum, strong enough at close range to overwhelm the miasma of dead devil, and Nero raised the blade to his shoulder and put his nose next to it to drown out the worse smell.

When Patty got a look at what was under the rips, she made a nauseated sound and clapped her hand over her mouth. "Holy ... Nero, _look at you!_ I need to ... I'm going to go call 911."

"No," he said, and he caught her hand before she could stand up. "I'm just tired. Fucking hell, Patty, let me rest a minute."

"No way," she said. She kept her other hand over her mouth, and was staring at the rip in Nero's leg. "No way." She tried to stand up again but he wouldn't let her go. "Nero, please, I have to call someone."

"I'll be _fine,"_ he said. She twisted her hand, but he was way stronger than she was and it was easy to keep her trapped. "I don't want you calling anyone. I just want to _sit here_ a minute. Please, let me."

She gave up, unable to get her hand out of Nero's grasp. "Okay," she said, quietly. "Please don't die."

"I'm not gonna die." He coughed again and closed his eyes, just wanting to not move for a while.

It didn't take long, however, for the wail of sirens to rise in the distance anyway. Damnation. One of the neighbors must have called the cops, and he couldn't just walk away from this one to avoid them the way he usually did. He released Patty - no point holding her now - and put his glowing hand into his coat to conceal it. Hopefully, nobody would try to make him move.

That was how Dante found him upon arriving home, still on the ground next to the car with two police cruisers flashing their lights and blocking the street on either side of the dead devil, and more on the way. Nero had relinquished Red Queen to the first cop to ask for it, just because he didn't want to deal with the hassle, and he was fending off another one trying to assess his injuries before the EMTs arrived.

He knew by the itch in his palm that Dante was near, and he looked up to see the older hunter come around the nearest police car. One of the officers immediately intercepted him and tried to bar him from the scene, so Nero forced himself to his feet.

"Sir," said the cop next to him. "Don't try to stand up. Come on, sit back down, paramedics are on the way."

Thank _Sparda._ Dante would know how to deal with this. Nero steadied himself against the car as the cop tried again to get him to sit down, but Nero knew he was hardly bleeding and he could feel the wounds closing already. It hurt to move, and especially to walk, but not as much as it had fifteen minutes ago.

"Sir, I really have to ask you to sit back down," said the cop.

"I'm going to be fine," Nero told him. "If you really want to help me, help me go over there."

Patty got to Dante first, as he was pulling out his wallet, and gave him a close hug. Nero couldn't hear what she said, but Dante looked his way a moment later and frowned.

"That's my nephew there," Dante was saying when Nero limped close enough to hear. "I _live here."_

"Dante," said Nero, raising his voice to be heard. "I am _so glad_ to see you." He slumped against the side of the police cruiser.

"Damn, kid," said Dante, looking him up and down. "Haven't I taught you not to bring your work home with you?"

"Hah," said Nero. He wasn't angry, though, too relieved for that. "Make all of this go away, will you?"

"Don't worry. There's a whole procedure for when devils take out a city block."

Nero had expected that, but that didn't mean he wanted to deal with it. He'd always managed to escape the area quickly enough to not have to deal with it in the past. "I just want a good night's sleep," he said, although now that he was standing between Dante and the devil he'd slain he thought he might want more than that.

The cop that had stopped Dante frowned, and handed him back his concealed weapon license card. "This was a devil?"

Dante put the card back in his wallet, giving her a queer look. "Are you new here? Yes, this was a devil. What the hell did you think it was?" He glanced toward the demon, then for a moment up toward the roof of the building next door.

"I kind of thought it was probably a devil, but you can never be too sure." She turned to Nero and said gently, "An ambulance is on its way. Sit back down."

"I don't think he needs one," said Dante. Then he gave Nero a frown and pulled his coat aside and looked him over. "Or do you? What'd you do, kid, let it eat you?"

"No!" Nero yanked his coat out of Dante's hand; the last thing he wanted was to have his devil bringer uncovered here and now. "I just got scratched a little. I'll be fine. But if you want to bring home dinner later, I won't say no to that."

"Bring it home to where, exactly?"

Nero glanced over his shoulder at the staved-in front wall of the office. "Oh, yeah."

"What happened?" When Nero cast a significant look at the cop standing next to them, Dante added, "Kid, the police in this town have seen it all. What happened?"

"... it's not much of a story," said Nero. "We were playing pool, and this thing just came through the wall at us. And ... that's pretty much it. Then I killed it." More sirens crescendoed up the street, and Nero banged his head on the top of the police cruiser when he saw that it was another police car and the ambulance. "I don't need an ambulance," he whined.

Patty, standing next to them both, gave Nero a very skeptical look. "Nero, you're ripped apart. You've been coughing up blood!"

"Yeah? Well I'm not anymore." Nero wiped his mouth just to make sure there was no blood there now. "I'm just tired as hell and want a nap." And he wanted Dante; now was not the time to say that, but it was becoming difficult for Nero to stop thinking it. Despite – or perhaps because of - the burn of his injuries, he was starting to get seriously aroused. He pulled what was left of his coat closer.

What the cop thought of any of this was impossible to know. "Will you at least let the paramedics look at you?" she asked Nero.

It was tempting, _so_ tempting, to just tell the cop that he was a devil, and in the morning it would be impossible to tell he'd ever been injured. "Holy shit," he said. "Will it make you leave me alone if I say yes?"

"He doesn't need anyone to look at him," said Dante, peering again up toward the building's roof. "He's a devil hunter, and scrapes are part of the job description."

"Right." Nero pointed at Dante. "Listen to him."

The EMTs were just as baffled as the cops that Nero didn't want to have anything to do with them, but they couldn't treat him without his consent. They made him sign a form declaring that he had refused treatment, and around that time two more cruisers arrived and there were cops all over the place. Nero was ready to _leave._

Someone who seemed to be in charge showed up with the latest influx of cops, and Dante went over to talk to her. Patty stayed with Nero, and eventually said, "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it," he told her, but she looked so upset that he had to give her a smile and pull her closer to give her a kiss on the forehead. "Really, I'm okay." It hurt to move that way, but Nero was getting used to it and the pain wasn't what it had been.

"You look gruesome," she said. Nero felt no need to reply to that.

In silence they watched Dante across the street, talking with the officer in charge. It was a fairly calm discussion, although the cop kept looking Nero's way. Dante gestured while he spoke, and he looked good, so good. So deadly, but dealing with these humans with gentle patience. Nero huddled his jacket closer, not wanting his arousal to be obvious.

Presently Patty said, "That demon was after Dante."

"Yep."

She shifted uneasily. "Do you think it's bad that I'm glad I'm leaving for school in less than a month?"

"I'd think you were kind of nuts if you weren't."

* * *

The police took statements from Patty and Nero while Dante went into the building to pack a few things and move all his weapons into the back seat of the convertible. Then Patty went home, the cops gave Red Queen back to Nero, and Dante took Nero to a nearby motel. They had to stop to pick up Rebellion, which Dante had wisely stashed behind a dumpster around the corner when he'd seen the police cruisers, and Nero, worn out, almost fell asleep in the car.

Dante roused him after they were checked in at the motel, and helping Nero limp into their room cured Nero of his weariness. Dante was so strong, practically carrying him, and the pain of moving put that dead devil back into Nero's mind. The moment the door was closed, Nero started to kiss the side of the older hunter's neck.

"Damn, kid," said Dante. "Can't you even wait for me to get your clothes off?"

"That thing put up a good fight," said Nero, and that was all he wanted to say because he was more interested in tonguing the line of Dante's jaw.

Dante caught him by the chin and gave him a long and deep kiss, and then whispered against his lips, "You stink like dead devil."

Nero laughed a little. His cheek hurt again, from flexing with the kiss. "Will you give me a bath?"

"That was the plan."

It turned out that Dante's help was badly needed, because a lot of the blood on Nero had dried by this point and peeling his ripped clothes from his injuries was difficult and painful. Dante helped him take off his coat and boots and had him stand in the shower, and then took off his own coat and shirt so he could turn the shower on Nero and carefully wet him down to free up the adhered cloth. It might have been impossible for Nero to get it off his own back and the backs of his legs without violence, but Dante slowly loosened the cloth and pulled it away from Nero's skin with only a little pain.

"Holy shit," said Dante, as he exposed Nero's shoulders. "Did you get thrown into a wall?"

"No, the wall got thrown into me."

Once he was stripped down, Nero picked up his coat from the floor to give it a look. "I don't know if this is repairable," he said. The devil's claws had all but shredded the back of it and the right shoulder.

"We'll get you another one," said Dante. He took the coat out of Nero's hand and dropped it back onto the floor, and then shed his own pants so that he could join Nero in the shower. The moment the pants came off, so that his hard erection was no longer concealed, Nero sighed with pleasure.

"Are you going to fuck me tonight?" he asked, turning to put his back to the wall. He did it gingerly, but the pressure against the crush injuries on his shoulders wasn't nearly as painful as he'd expected.

Dante stepped close, so that he was under the spray and Nero could run one hand over his chest and shoulders. "If you want me to, and I can do it without hurting you."

"No, no. I want you to hurt me. I want to feel it." Nero clasped Dante's cock with his left hand, firmly enough to make the man groan and thrust hard into the pressure. Dante braced his hands on the wall on either side of Nero and lipped Nero's chin, his hips again jerking forward.

"You've been hurt enough today," said Dante, and then he kissed Nero, hard and deep. Nero began to stroke Dante's erection, resting his claws on the man's shoulder but he consciously kept himself from digging in.

It was not originally Nero's intention to get Dante off right there in the shower, but it felt so good to kiss him and feel the tension in his body, and the power in his hips as he fucked Nero's hand. He had no idea what Dante had had to put up with today, other than coming home to find cops all over the place and the front wall of his home staved in, and Nero found that he didn't care. Whatever it was, even if it was nothing aside from that, he deserved whatever Nero could give him.

Nero started to drop to his knees so he could deliver a blow job, but Dante stopped him before he could get down. "What are you doing?"

"I want to," said Nero.

"I thought you wanted me to fuck you," said Dante.

"It'll be better this way." Nero put his hand around Dante's cock again, and let Dante feel the prick of talons on his shoulder. It had the intended effect; Dante stopped arguing and resumed kissing Nero, and didn't complain a second time when Nero tried to go down on him.

They moved so that Dante could put his back to the tile, and he stroked Nero's hair as water ran through it and down Nero's body. The slash across Nero's face stung as he opened his mouth on Dante's erection, but he could tell it was healing and the sting only served to arouse him more. He'd sustained the wound killing a demon on Dante's behalf, and he liked the feel of it.

There was no flavor and little scent left on Dante's skin, but it was nevertheless a positive pleasure for Nero to take as much of that hard cock down his throat as he could manage. He closed his eyes, reveling in the feel of warm water flowing through the half-healed wounds on his back and shoulder, and sucked and pulled and tongued Dante's cock until the fingers in his hair started to curl. _Yes._ Dante knew that actually grabbing Nero by the hair wasn't a good idea, but he clearly _wanted_ to and was having to work to restrain himself. _Yes._ Nero didn't touch his own erection, because he didn't want to come this way, but his cock ached almost as much as his wounds.

"Shit," Dante whispered, so Nero growled a little because he knew Dante liked that. He was rewarded with a strained half-thrust into his mouth that almost choked him, and then the hands left his hair as Dante slapped them against the shower wall next to himself. _Yes._ "Nero ..."

The half-warning came at the same time as the first taste of Dante's semen, and Nero growled again as he sucked hard. Dante stifled a rough sound, his breath fast and harsh as he came into Nero's mouth, and it sounded _so good._ Nero could have listened to that forever.

"Stop," said Dante, and Nero stopped sucking but he couldn't keep himself from kissing and licking Dante's hips and the upper junction of his thighs. He was _so_ aroused, almost desperately so, but for now all he wanted to do was rub the uninjured side of his face against Dante's skin and feel the solid muscle beneath. He'd kill for this devil, and had done so less than three hours ago.

When Dante got his head back together he pulled Nero to his feet, and when he reached down Nero had to stop him. "I want you to fuck me," Nero told him, kissing his chin.

"Oh, shit," said Dante, with half a laugh. "I thought you changed your mind."

"No. I can wait. I want to wait."

"You know, you could just _tell me_ what you're after." Dante laid soft kisses across Nero's throat, and gently bit under his jaw. "And not make me try to guess."

The soft bite made Nero moan. _Yes._ He wanted a stronger bite, a dominating bite. "I want you to fuck me," he said. "I want it to take _forever."_

"Hmmm." Dante nudged Nero back, and then had him turn around so that Dante could very gently wash his back. It hurt, the soap stinging the still-open wounds, but Nero just closed his eyes to enjoy how the pain put an ache into his cock. "I know you haven't seen yourself lately," said Dante, "but you are torn up. I don't want to hurt you."

"I already feel better." Nero put his face under the spray, just wanting to feel it in the slash on his cheek, and then leaned his forehead against the wall under the showerhead to let the water run down his back. Dante's careful hands and his presence, so close by, were enough to keep Nero's arousal hot and high. "I want you inside me," he said, "but slow."

Dante made no reply to that, and simply continued to clean Nero down. The puncture through Nero's thigh was really the worst injury, closed on the surface but lancing with pain every time Nero moved; even if he hadn't been aroused, it would have been nice to be able to just stand there and not have to twist or bend. Dante's hands, though, moving slickly over him, were pleasure on unbroken skin and pain on the wounds, and that was enough to make Nero moan.

"You know," said Nero, "that demon only went after me because it thought I was you."

"That so," said Dante. He pulled Nero back until the spray hit him in the chest, and started to gently soap his hair.

Oh, that felt amazing. "It kind of gave me the impression there might be more coming later."

"We'll worry about that when _later_ gets here."

By the time Nero was clean and rinsed to Dante's satisfaction, he was about out of his mind with desire. He caught sight of his reflection while he was drying himself, though, and had to pause for a better look.

Even cleaned of blood and partially healed, the cut across his face looked horrific; it must have been down to the bone when fresh. The ones across his thighs went deep into the meat under his skin. He turned a bit to see the back of one shoulder, which looked like some of the flesh had been partially sheared, and the two slashes he could see were just as bad as the ones on his legs.

"Damn," he said.

"Yeah," said Dante. "Damn."

"I thought that brick hit me square on, but I guess not." The crushed skin and muscle on his shoulder were an inflamed red as the injury knitted itself back together, and the deep slashes were still oozing blood. It all looked far worse than it felt, but it was no wonder everyone was treating him the way they were. "That would have killed Patty."

"You sure you want to have sex?" asked Dante. He stepped behind Nero, looking at him through the mirror.

Nero took one of Dante's hands and pulled it down between his legs, curling Dante's fingers under his balls. He was so hard, his cock aching. "Damned sure. Unless I look too bad for you to get it up."

"That's ... not exactly the problem." Dante eased his hand lower and took Nero's testicles in a firm grip. He moved half a step closer, until Nero could feel the beginnings of a fresh erection against his rear.

"Oh." Nero grinned. "Seeing me ripped apart by a demon I killed for you turns you on." He leaned his head back and to the side, until Dante made a low sound and began to kiss the junction of his neck and shoulder.

"That's kind of fucked up, isn't it?" Dante murmured against Nero's skin.

"Yeah, but obviously I'm fucked up, too." Nero turned his head farther and put his hand on Dante's head, pulling him down, urging him to bite.

"I don't want to hurt you," Dante whispered. A moment later he tightened his hold on Nero's balls with one hand and put his other around Nero's throat, and opened his mouth to deliver the bite Nero wanted.

The pain - nothing next to the pain that devil had clawed into Nero's flesh - and the controlling grip settled Nero immediately, and he relaxed into the hold. Dante's hips rammed against his, and there was more pain when Dante's chest pressed against his back but it wasn't terrible. Nero moaned and put his left hand over Dante's on his throat, encouraging a tighter grip. "Yes. Fuck me."

Dante all but carried him out of the bathroom by the throat and threw him face-down onto the bed. The coverlet was rough when Nero fell onto it, so he stripped it back to the smoother sheets as Dante unzipped the duffel; then Dante's hand on the back of his neck forced him to lay down on the edge of the bed.

"Yes," said Nero, almost panting from how turned on his was. He gripped the sheets with his left hand, and sank the claws on his right into a pillow. "Do it. You know you want it."

"Tell me if I hurt you." Dante's voice was strained. He let Nero go, and Nero heard him get a condom and lubricant onto himself; then the mattress went down as Dante rested his weight on one hand next to Nero's body. "I don't want to hurt you."

The tension behind the words told Nero otherwise. "Come on," said Nero. "You know what killing a strong demon does to me."

There it was, the pressure of Dante's cock between Nero's buttocks, and Nero raised his hips to make the penetration easier. His back arched as the pressure overcame his body's resistance and invaded him, and _fucking hell_ it felt _amazing._ The way Dante's cock stretched him, how deep inside him it went ... even the initial cramp of pain was exactly what he needed.

Dante put his other hand down next to Nero, and paused with his cock fully inside the younger man's body. "How do you want this?" he asked, and the question came between harsh breaths.

"Hard and slow," said Nero, and Dante obliged. Each thrust was sharp and powerful, but Dante took his time withdrawing for the next; each one gave Nero a shock of pleasure that was almost as good as any orgasm he could give himself. It was intense at first, and Nero had to bite the pillow to keep his moans at a reasonable volume, but after a while the pleasure began to blend together and Nero just sank into it. The pain of his injuries evaporated under the force of the ecstasy that flowed up his spine and down his limbs, and drove a soft cry from his throat with every movement of Dante's hips.

He forced himself to keep clutching the sheet, because he knew he'd come in short order if he touched himself, and he wanted this to _last._ He could have taken this forever.

After a while, though, Dante's hand moved to the back of Nero's neck, and his thrusts began to quicken. "Nero," he whispered, but when Nero tried to move, the hand on his neck pinned him to the bed.

 _Yes._ Dante's sudden aggression meant he was starting to forget what he was doing. Nero tried again to sit up just to make Dante press him down harder; the wrong side of his face wound up against the mattress, and the slash across his cheek burned as Dante forced it against the sheet. The sting and the demand in the hand on his neck, and the growing urgency of the cock driving into him, immediately shifted Nero's frame of mind. Yes, he would submit. Yes, he was sexually available to the more powerful devil holding him down, for whatever purpose Dante wanted to put him. Nero lifted his hips a touch to make it easier for Dante to fuck him, and the pressure on his neck eased.

It felt _so damned good_ to be held down this way - practically the only way he _could_ be held down without triggering a panic attack - and fucked hard. As much as Nero had enjoyed the encounter up to this point, the pleasure now started to go out of control. He couldn't help it ... he shifted to get his left hand between his legs. Although Dante snarled and shoved his face down into the mattress as punishment for moving, Nero couldn't care. He wrapped his hand around his erection, and _fucking hell_ it drove him straight out of his mind. He bucked mindlessly, not stroking himself so much as fucking his hand, until the pleasure snapped and he came with a rough cry.

A minute or so later, Dante snarled again and came as well, and then rested with his weight on his hands and his body held above Nero's. With the hold on his neck gone, Nero was able to stretch, and turn a bit to get his injured cheek off the mattress.

"Damn," he whispered.

Dante seemed content to stay that way indefinitely, so after a couple of minutes Nero nudged him to wake him up and get him to move. While Dante went to the bathroom to clean up, Nero just crawled the rest of the way up onto the bed and lay down on his belly. He was tired now, and completely sated. That was exactly what his body had craved.

Now, though, it craved something else. "Hey," he said, when Dante came back out of the bathroom and started to get dressed. "Want to get me some dinner?"

"Heh." Dante sat down next to Nero's head and ran gentle fingers through his hair. "I have to do all the work, do I?"

Nero pointed vaguely at the pain on his face. "I don't mind going myself, but do you want me to walk into a burger joint like this?"

"Absolutely not." Dante leaned down and gave the back of Nero's head a kiss. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes."

"Thanks." The promise of imminent food made Nero's stomach rumble.

Dante threw Nero some underwear and then pulled a blanket over him, and finished getting dressed. The money from the safe behind the bar turned out to be in Nero's duffel, which was kind of a relief for Nero to see.

At the door, however, Dante paused, looking out into the parking lot. After a moment, he said, "Hey, kid. Did you happen to notice anything out of the ordinary back when you were fighting that devil?"

"Other than it throwing a wall at me? Not really. Why?"

"I dunno." Dante peered around, stepping outside to look up at the top of the building and around at the trees. "I keep getting the idea there's another one somewhere nearby. I can't be sure, though."

"It had better stay out there," said Nero, too comfortable to be very interested. "I'm in no mood for bullshit right now." Then, a little confused, he said, "Can't you always tell if there's a demon?"

"Not the really weak ones. Not always. The dangerous ones, yes, but the small fry sometimes fade into the background." Coming back into the room, Dante picked up Red Queen from where it rested against the motel room dresser, and relocated it next to the bed. "If there is one out there, I'm not sure I should leave you here alone."

Nero just closed his eyes. "I'm really damned hungry, and before you say it, no, I don't want pizza. I'll be fine. I'm just tired, not incapable. Go on."

Dante hesitated, reluctant, but eventually said, "... okay." He picked up his keys, and locked the motel room door behind him.

It should have been easy for Nero to drift straight off to sleep, but when he was almost there a faint whisper breathed across his mind. It sent a chill down his back, and roused him immediately. "Fuck," he said. He rolled a bit so he could look at the dresser, and the white-hilted sword resting on it next to the television set, surrounded by Dante's other devil arms. "I don't care. Leave me alone."

He knew, though that the cold whisper was right. He could be back to normal in seconds, rather than hours, if he just picked up Yamato for a moment. He'd handicapped himself by not taking Yamato with him to take out that demon, and now he was doing it again by letting his wounds close at their ordinary rate.

It wouldn't take long, and he could put the thing back down again after he was better.

"No," said Nero, mostly to himself. The whisper did not repeat.

* * *

Nero woke suddenly in the night to a hand around his throat and a weight on his body. He'd rolled over onto his back in his sleep, and Dante had a leg between his to restrain his hips, and an arm over his chest to hold him down. The grip on his throat wasn't choking, but it was tight and brooked no resistance.

He reacted by reflex and habit, raising his chin and forcing his muscles to relax. _I'm no threat._ Anxiety settled into his belly, though ... if he panicked, this would turn dangerous.

"Dante," he whispered.

The hold on his throat eased, and Dante nuzzled his cheek. Nero turned to take the drowsy kiss being offered, and he was released when he tried to pull away. A moment later the kiss died as Dante dropped back to sleep. Nero turned back over onto his belly to get more comfortable and went back to sleep himself.

When he woke again it was to brightening light coming through the curtains. The crushed and sheared flesh on his back and shoulders was whole and almost painless, and when he touched his face he could feel only a superficial scratch, like what an aggressive cat might leave.

He was damned hungry, but he eased himself out of bed so as not to wake Dante, put on some pants, and while his lover slept he settled on the floor with Red Queen and his cleaning kit. At some point Dante had wiped off the devil blood and most of the burned propellant, but hadn't even tried to give the sword a proper cleaning. That was fine; Dante would have probably fucked it up, and Nero hardly minded quality time with his weapon.

Whether it was the sounds Nero made as he broke apart the sword's mechanism, or the smell of the solvent and oil he used to clean it, Dante began to stir half an hour later. "Good morning," said Nero.

"Hmmph." Dante sighed. "What time is it?" He sounded only half-awake.

"A little after eight." Nero laid the gear assembly into Red Queen and flipped the levers that kept the gears in place. "I'll be done here in about ten minutes, if you want breakfast. If you don't, I'm leaving without you because I'm starving."

He had his back to the bed, but heard Dante shift around, moving to the edge, so it was no surprise when a hand ran over his shoulders. "Way better," said Dante. "Turn around."

Nero did, showing him the scratch on his cheek. "I think I'm presentable again."

Dante touched his chin to turn his head a bit farther, and said, "Yeah, I agree."

"I was thinking about some things, though," said Nero, as he returned to reassembling his sword. "What if there was a second demon, like you thought? It had to have watched that fight."

"Yeah."

"What could it have been?"

Dante got up and started to get dressed. "Who knows," he said tiredly. "Could be anything. A spawn. A slave. A pet. Or it could be completely unrelated. It might have been just passing through and noticed a couple of powerful devils trying to kill each other, and came to watch the show."

"Yeah, for some reason I don't buy that explanation."

"Neither do I," said Dante. He was silent a moment, pulling on his pants. "So, ah ... if you don't mind my asking ... how was it you got so cut up?"

The question behind that question was easy enough for Nero to hear. "I think you already know how." He smeared a bit of gear grease into the shift mechanism and turned the gears a few times to get it spread around.

"But you still killed it."

"Yeah," said Nero. "Turns out that blacking out in the middle of a dangerous fight isn't _guaranteed_ to be fatal." He laughed a little, not because it was funny but because all of the other options were unacceptable.

Dante ran his fingers through Nero's hair, until Nero ducked to escape the touch. "I really wish you'd see someone about this."

"Sure," said Nero. "I can already imagine that conversation. Hi! I'm a demon, and I need help with my mental health." The reminder of how broken he was put an unstable emotion into the pit of his throat; he let a little anger into his words to conceal it. "They'd probably have me committed, if they didn't decide to kill me for the safety of the human race."

Dante sighed, and changed the subject. "Okay. Well. I need to call Lady. Is that okay?"

Was that _okay?_ As if Nero could stop him! "What about?"

"Money. That hole in the wall isn't going to fix itself."

Nero glanced toward the open duffel. He didn't know how much cash they had, but no, it probably wouldn't be enough for repairs. Not with Dante doing all of the work lately. Damn. No other choice. "Okay," he said with ill grace.

The phone was on the dresser opposite the television, and Dante had to move some of the devil arms stacked there to reach it. He set Yamato on the floor, leaning against the corner formed by the wall and the dresser; Nero turned his head away, not wanting to even look at the weapon.

Dante dialed out. "Hey," he said. "It's me. I need a favor. No, a monetary favor. Hah. No, a devil completely trashed the office yesterday. Yeah, I know." A pause, and then he snorted. "No, it was Nero. It was interesting to come home to that."

Frowning at the mention of his name, Nero pulled the sword's ignition plug, checking that the firing tip was clean.

"We'll be out there in about two hours. Could you meet us? Yeah, sure. No problem. No. _No,_ and I don't want you to, either." Dante turned to look at Nero. "It's not like he invited the fucking thing to break the wall down. Yeah, it broke through a wall. Yeah, I know. Look, let's talk about this later. We were about to go for breakfast. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right. Bye."

"So ... what?" asked Nero after Dante hung up. "She thinks I should have been able to keep that demon from destroying the place?"

"No, she was kidding." Dante picked up his coat from the floor and shook it out. "It's just not funny in this case and I don't want her saying it to you."

He hesitated, then reached down and offered the tips of his fingers; Nero turned his head to kiss them, and Dante ran them over his cheek. "You look a lot better," said Dante, "but how are you feeling?"

Nero seated the casing back onto Red Queen and screwed it down. "Just hungry," he said.

"Get dressed. Let's get some breakfast."

* * *

Lady was already at Devil May Cry and looking at the wreckage when they got there. "Wow," she said, as Dante parked on the street in front of the building.

Dante got out and went to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Yeah, that's what I said when I saw it, too."

It was hard for Nero to look at them - standing so comfortably close to one another, Lady's body swollen with pregnancy - and not spontaneously combust. He made himself get out of the car but stayed near the fender, and tried not to let his fury show. "It was a big demon," he said, waving a hand toward the lumps of it that still lay in the street. The pieces were disintegrating, and many had been crushed like roadkill by passing cars, but there were a lot of them strewn across a long stretch of street.

Lady gave him a warm smile, but she addressed Dante. "I can't even guess how much this is going to cost," she said. "It looks like you have structural damage."

"Not the first time," said Dante.

"I've already called Rob," she said. "He's coming by tomorrow." Then her eyes darted back to Nero. "Have you talked to Nero there, about this?"

Dante turned to look Nero's way. "Talked to him about what?"

"It's his money, too."

"What do you mean?" asked Nero, but Dante thought a moment, and nodded.

The older hunter beckoned Nero closer, and when Nero joined them he said, "You deserve a say."

"In what?"

"Usually when this happens," said Lady, "I have his place fixed back up, and then he owes me twenty grand and he does all kinds of ridiculous shit to get the money to pay me back. We can do that again, but you're going to be paying me back, too, so you should be sure you're okay with it before we go forward."

"If you're not," said Dante, "we can figure something else out."

The sudden decision - and the fact that he was asked to make it at all - was a total surprise. Nero had no idea what to say. "Why are you asking me?"

"Because you're not an employee," said Lady. She shifted her weight, putting a hand on her lower back. "It's your money, too."

Nero had brought in zero income for months. Lady was the source of a lot of Dante's jobs these days, and should have known that. "I'm a moocher right now," he said. "It's not my call."

"That's temporary," said Dante, for the thousandth time.

"It's been _temporary_ since February."

"What are you talking about?" asked Lady. Maybe she _didn't_ know, although Nero had no idea how she could have failed to notice how little he did these days.

"Nero's being stupid," said Dante. "How about if you just find out how much it will cost and we'll decide later what we want to do?"

Lady was giving Nero a speculative look now, almost visibly thinking. Shit, she really hadn't known, but she did now. "Yeah," she said. "Call me Tuesday. I expect Rob will have an estimate by then. What's going on with you two?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," said Dante.

That wasn't a satisfactory brush-off, and the way Lady bit the side of her lip said she wasn't satisfied with it. She didn't press, though. "Tuesday," she said. "And I'll have Rob put up some tarps or something in case it rains."

"Thanks." Then Dante said, "You look great, by the way. How are you doing?"

"My back is _killing me."_ Lady sounded more exasperated than anything, but the way she was standing, the odd way she held her weight and had a hand on her lower back, made Nero believe it. "And I was awake all night, because _your devil child_ keeps kicking me in the kidneys."

Dante laughed. "That devil child was your idea. Too late to complain now." Then Lady let him lay a hand on her round belly to feel the baby move, and Nero had to literally turn around and walk away to keep from screaming.

Someone – the cops, Nero presumed – had left the gap in the wall crossed with yellow caution tape. He didn't go into the building, because it was probably unstable, but just glancing in from the outside didn't show anything obviously missing, or out of place beyond what that demon had done the day before. Behind him, Lady and Dante were laughing about something Nero hadn't caught, and he had to remind himself that Dante hadn't slept with her for months. They were friends, only friends. Friends who had created a baby together.

"Nero," Lady called, and Nero turned to see what the hell she wanted. "Dante says you lost your coat to this demon?"

Nero walked a few paces closer to them, but didn't want to share space with the two of them anymore. "I didn't lose it so much as it got cut to ribbons," he said.

"Let's get you another one," said Lady.

What the hell did that mean? Did Lady intend to take him shopping? Nero pulled down the right arm of his hoodie and stuck his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. "I can get one later," he said.

Dante shook his head. "No, we'll be broke later. Come on."

"Unless you don't want one," said Lady.

Of course Nero _wanted_ one. He already missed the one that had been destroyed: the weight of it on his shoulders, the protective barrier it made between him and the air and between his body and other people's eyes. "I can get one later," he said again.

"Come on," said Lady. "Don't worry, I'll pay for it. You don't have to pay me back or anything."

Dante gave her a sharp look. "What?"

"He looks strange without a jacket on," Lady told him.

"You've never bought _me_ a new coat!"

"That's because you're an asshole," said Lady. "Nero is a sweetheart."

What the hell. "What's the catch?" Nero asked.

"No catch, except that you need to ride in the back seat because my back hurts."

"You have _never_ bought me clothes," said Dante.

"And I'm not now," said Lady.

"How many coats have I destroyed doing something for you?"

"If you were more careful, the number would be zero."

Well, shit. Nero didn't want Lady doing him any favors, but he _did_ want a jacket and he took Dante at his word that they would be flat broke soon. This kind of sucked. He didn't want to be in Lady's debt, either literally or morally, but he didn't feel fully dressed with no coat and his other one was far too heavy to wear in the summer.

She did kind of owe him, though. Maybe he could take this as a partial repayment for the hell he'd gone through on that last job she'd passed him. "Fine," he said. "As long as you don't think I owe you anything for it."

Lady smiled and beckoned to him. "Dante can drive," she said. "There's a fantastic tailor down Walnut Street, he knows where it is."

Dante's jaw dropped. "You're going to get him a _tailored_ coat?"

"Stop whining," Lady told him. "You're starting to sound like a puppy. Just get in the car."

The betrayed look on Dante's face almost made Nero laugh. He didn't want to laugh. He wanted to resent Lady for this unasked-for favor. "It's just a jacket," said Nero as he jumped over the side of the convertible to get into the back seat.

"Kid," said Dante, "you have no idea." He got into the car and started it, and then turned to look at Lady while she eased herself into the passenger seat. "This is some kind of pregnant woman thing, isn't it? This is because you're full of hormones and shit, and Nero looks adorable and he's setting off your inner mother."

"Sure," said Lady agreeably. "That must be it. That's the only possible explanation."

"If you're going to bicker," said Nero, "forget it. I'll get a jacket some other time."

"Nope," said Lady. "We're going now, and Dante is going to be quiet and stop griping."

Dante put the car in gear. "I'm not griping," he said, his tone turning petulant. "I'm just jealous."

"We'll get some lunch after Nero gets measured," said Lady. "Don't worry, I'll pay for that, too." She patted Dante's hand on the steering wheel.

Nero turned to sit sideways across the back seat. It was a nice day, clear sky, not too hot, and the wind as the car picked up speed felt good. He'd never had any clothes made for him before. Maybe this would be nice. Maybe he deserved it. Lady did kind of owe him.

He watched the skyline as the buildings passed, but saw no sign of any demons other than Dante and himself.


	2. Chapter 2

The demon that was shadowing him was one half block over, Dante decided, in the alley behind the dignified Victorian-era houses at his right hand. The trace was tenuous, but after getting it off and on for two weeks, Dante had become sure this wasn't his imagination, and this was the closest it had gotten yet.

He considered going over to confront it, but the sense it was getting of him was certainly far clearer than the one he was getting of it. It would know he was coming long before he got there. There was no reason to think that it would wait to face him, and, depending on what kind of devil it was, it could be gone before he took three paces down a side yard. The better option, he thought, was probably to just continue as he was, and pretend he hadn't noticed it. The weakest devils sometimes banked on the great powers just not even seeing them, because usually they didn't.

The setting sun had fallen behind the houses across the way, and the fine weather had brought a lot of people out onto the street. The neighborhood was fairly upscale, the houses built shoulder-to-shoulder with little light between them and the street overhung by hundred-year-old maples. Dante remembered when this had been a somewhat run-down area, but money was flowing into it now and the buildings were coming back into good repair. People walked along the sidewalk, in singles or in groups, just enjoying the evening, and they were the kind of people – young people, artists and college students and Theosophists and Marxists and the sort that were attracted to that crowd - who didn't bat an eye at a man with a broadsword.

A woman with a dog on a leash was walking the other direction, and Dante had to smile and brush off her apology when the dog went berserk.

"I'm sorry," she said, holding the animal's leash an inch from its collar while the dog stood on its hind legs, choking itself on the collar and barking madly. "I don't know what's come over him. I'm so sorry." She gently scolded the animal, smiling an embarrassed smile.

"Don't worry about it," said Dante. He moved around them and continued on his way. The dog continued to bark at his back for half a block.

When he reached the next street and crossed it, he saw something cross the street at the alley out of the corner of his eye.

No one bothered him, other than a second dog barking at him from the sidewalk across the street, and Dante tried to get some idea about what the devil was, some sense of it other than the mere fact of its existence. Nothing came to him. It drifted in and out of his perception, as though flickering like a candle flame, never more than a downy touch against the edge of his awareness.

By the time dusk fell, Dante had left the nice neighborhood with its convenient alleys in which a demon might hide, and had entered the post-industrial wasteland next door. There were many empty lots here, surrounded by chain-link fences and offering no cover, and long stretches of railroad tracks. The sense Dante had of the devil following him slipped away to nothing, and he thought he had probably left it behind.

His destination was a building two stories in the front and one in the back, following the edge of the block that it shared with an empty lot covered in dried-out sickly grass. The streetlights nearest the building were out, and stretches of the walls were obscured by graffiti.

There were demons in it, he knew as soon as he was close enough to get a good look at it. More than one.

The door opened as he approached the building, but the figure that appeared in the doorway was human, with no trace of demonic taint. "You're late," he said.

"Am I." The area behind the man was almost completely dark, with only a dim violet light leaking in from a room farther in, but the yellow streetlight on the corner of the next block gave Dante enough illumination. "You should let me in right now, then, shouldn't you?"

The man obediently moved to the side, but Dante took a moment in the doorway to examine him. His dark eyes were slightly unfocused, there were bruises on his jaw and throat, and his torn clothes had a musky smell about them that set Dante's teeth on edge. Just to be sure, Dante took him by the wrists and pinned his hands to the door frame over his head. The man submitted to this, compliantly relaxing his body and lifting his chin; his lips parted slightly.

Dante released him, and asked, "How long have you been here?"

"Since Ralis arrived."

"How long ago was that?"

The man gave him a strange look, but obeyed the devil in front of him without question. "May sixteenth," he said.

"Are there any other humans here?"

Again the strange look. "All of us are here."

"Right," said Dante. "And how many is that?"

"Four," said the man, "including me."

"How many demons right now?"

"Six, including you."

Good enough. "Listen to me." Dante took the man by the chin in a painfully hard grip, letting his fingertips press into the dark bruises already there. The human's eyes instantly went soft and blank. "I want you to walk across the street and go to the other side of the building there. Stay there until I come to get you."

"Yes, master," said the human dreamily.

Dante gave him an ungentle shove out the door and waited long enough to see the man cross the street. Then he shut the door and went in to deal with the demons.

The front room was a broken-down storefront with shattered glass cabinets under the counter, and the door that had separated the storefront from the rear of the building had been removed; the dull violet light was coming from back there. A short hallway led to a couple of empty rooms of varying sizes, along with a set of stairs going up to the second floor. There was at least one devil up there. Dante walked by them.

The rear of the building was a single long space, probably a hundred feet from front to back and filled with the scent of blood. The violet light was coming from a crack in the wall halfway down; the sudden nausea in his belly told Dante that the crack led to the demon world. There were candles laid out on the floor near the crack, but they were burning low and blue. Those and the crack itself were the only sources of light. Four reasonably strong demons were gathered near the crack, two of them in human shape holding a struggling figure on its knees amidst the candles, and the third in its natural form. The fourth lay on the floor, unmoving. Although Dante couldn't see exactly what was happening from the door, the blood scent in the air was richly human and the two human-shaped devils were humming dissonantly.

The demon not wearing a human form turned as Dante entered. "You're late," it said. Its animal muzzle wasn't made for language, and it slobbered the words.

"I didn't realize I had an appointment," said Dante, walking toward them. He put a hand over his mouth; the aura of _wrongness_ radiating from the crack on the wall was strong enough to turn his stomach, and might have made him retch if he hadn't known it was illusory. He looked over the space, checking the corners, until he could see that there were no humans in the room except the one forced to kneel near the crack. Dante pulled his guns and shot the two holding the human down, the bullets ripping through their heads and putting a stop to the discordant hum, then swapped for Rebellion and went for the one that had spoken.

It roared and met him halfway, its hands glowing violet-crimson and abruptly wielding a transparent scythe, visible only by the aura around it. It parried Dante's first strike with the shaft of the scythe, then parried the second and forced Rebellion's tip to one side, bringing the point of the scythe down toward Dante's neck. Dante turned slightly to take it on the shoulder, and as the tip ripped down between his collarbone and shoulder blade he gave Rebellion a powerful, two-handed upward swipe. It hurt like hell to move that way, grinding the scythe against the bones, but the joint wasn't locked. The notch on Rebellion's tip caught the demon in the midsection, and the force of the swing took the demon off its feet and slammed it against the ceiling.

One of the devils Dante had shot was back on its feet and transformed by that point, and Dante dealt with it by shooting it again in the leg to slow it down, and then lopping off its head. He had a moment before the other one leapt at him, and he used the time to yank the scythe out of his shoulder and slash it into the devil's face. He followed that up with another beheading. Not much to them, really.

The first demon he'd hit had fallen to the floor and started to pick itself up, but Dante put a stop to that by impaling it through the back. He aimed to the left of its heart, not wanting it dead yet. It shrieked as the blade went through its body, twisting on the floor. "What's going on here?" Dante asked, rolling his shoulder to test the burn in it. The point of the scythe had gone deep, probably into his lung, but the puncture was already closing and the pain was nothing to worry about. He glanced over at the fourth devil in the room, but it was still on the floor and hadn't moved. It was in a human shape, and black chains bound it.

"You tell me!" slobbered the impaled demon. "What the hell are you doing?" It cried out when Dante twisted Rebellion, twisting its ribs apart; the reek of devil blood now overwhelmed the smell of human blood.

"I'm asking the questions here, not you." Dante kept his tone conversational. "What are you trying to do?"

The human that the devils had been holding down was still on her knees, bent over in the center of a fully-furnished, half-activated gate opening circle. Her hands were tied behind her back, her shirt was torn and falling off of her, and blood dripped from a deep cut under her chin, down the side of her neck and shoulder and breast. There was a lot of blood on the floor in front of her, within a smallish rune-marked circle in the center of the larger one. Her mouth was open, taking her breath in long, harsh gasps, although whether that was from her injury or from the crack sickening her was not apparent.

Dante lifted Rebellion a few inches and then rammed it downward to embed nine inches of the tip into the floor; the demon impaled on the blade shrieked again and clawed at the floorboards. "What were you trying to do?" Dante asked again.

"Open the portal for you!" the devil cried. "What the fuck do you think we were doing!"

That was interesting. Dante left the devil pinned to the floor and stepped into the gate opening circle, snuffing one of the candles and smearing some of the phosphorous lines with his boot. "Who exactly do you think I am?" he asked.

When he touched the woman's chin she looked up at him, her eyes holding pain and hatred but none of the charmed glaze of the man who had opened the front door.

The demon was struggling painfully to breathe around the sword blade through its torso. "You ... look like him," it said. Then it made a burbling, hacking noise.

Dante took off his coat and draped it over the woman's bare shoulders, then helped her stand up and get out of the magic circle. He knocked over another candle on the way out of it, causing the remainder to flare abruptly into normal, yellow flames, and then they all extinguished. "Like who?" he asked, and when the demon didn't respond he let the woman sit back down on the floor and gave Rebellion a yank and a twist. "Who do you think I am?"

"Dante!" screamed the demon. "I thought you were Dante!"

What the _fuck._ Dante put his foot on the demon's back. "Who the hell told you I was coming?" he asked. "And who told you I wanted a portal opened?"

"Surgot. Why are you ... why are you asking me this?"

"Who is Surgot?" asked Dante.

The impaled devil didn't answer, though, not even when Dante kicked it hard in the back and again wrenched Rebellion to widen the wound. It just cried out in agony, clearly unwilling to tell him anything else. Dante put Ivory to the back of its head and shot it until its brains were pulp.

There was only one devil in the building now, the one bound on the floor. The demon that had been on the second floor in the front must have skedaddled when the fight started. That was annoying, but there was nothing Dante could do about it now. The demon in chains still hadn't moved and didn't even look conscious, so Dante went over to untie the lady.

"Who are you?" she asked quietly. She put one hand to the wound on her throat as soon as she was free, and gathered up the remnants of her shirt with the other.

"Not what these devils seemed to think I am," said Dante. He put his coat back over her shoulders, and she pulled it closed. "What's your name?"

"Samantha Greer."

"Do you think you can walk?"

She tried to stand, and needed a little help getting up but managed to stay upright once she was on her feet. "I think I'll be okay," she said. "There are two others upstairs."

"Stay here," Dante told her. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

He more than half-expected to find the other two humans dead, slain before the demon had fled, but that wasn't the case. They were both alive, a middle-aged man laying on the bare wooden floor of the completely empty room, and a teenaged boy on his knees. Their clothes were torn and stained, bruises darkening the skin exposed by the rips; the same smell of devil musk permeated the room. They looked up at him with languid expressions when he walked in, and the boy licked the corner of his bruised mouth.

Shit. Dante's stomach twisted, and not because of the crack downstairs. "Stand up," he told them, and they rose immediately. He recognized the teenager from the photo he'd been shown. This would be Daniel Baker, then. "Come with me."

He collected the man he'd sent across the street and assembled them outside the building. The woman had to sit down. She didn't look like she was in immediate danger of death, and she assured him again that she would be all right, but she probably should go the ER. Dante checked the men and the boy to see if they were _physically_ injured, and they were not.

They gave him their names and addresses without question. The teenager was, indeed, Daniel Baker.

"You're going to follow me," said Dante to the three charmed humans as he hitched Rebellion on his back and picked up the woman from the ground. His shoulder was healed now, and she felt very light. "We're going to call your families and have them come get you." They agreed immediately, and fell in behind him when he started walking back toward the Victorian neighborhood. He'd find someone there who would let him use their phone, and then he'd come back to deal with the last devil. It was bound, and would wait for him.

The woman he carried huddled close to his chest, keeping his coat closed around her. "Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome," he told her.

* * *

Dante left the devils' victims at the home of a young couple, who had been startled to find a group like this on their doorstep but were more than willing to offer what aid they could. He remained long enough to ensure that an ambulance was on its way for the injured woman, and family members were on their way to collect the men. Mrs. Baker had started crying on the phone when Dante called her, and said she would be there in twenty minutes. Good enough.

The devil who had fled was still not back when Dante returned to the abandoned building, leaving him to deal with only the one in chains. It hadn't moved, and didn't move when Dante rolled it onto its back to look it over in the lurid violet light. It was in human form and looked to be a young man in his twenties, wearing jeans and an open flannel shirt with a plain undershirt beneath it. Its hands were bound behind its back and its legs chained together, with more black chain wrapped around its body to keep it immobile.

It was currently unresponsive, but Dante expected that to change sometime soon; this would probably be the devil the others had planned to sacrifice to fuel the gate's opening, and they would have needed it conscious. Dante tested the chains binding it, trying to break a link on the loose end, but even putting all the power he could into weakening the structure of the metal he could only bend it. This would definitely hold the thing.

While he waited for the devil to wake, Dante walked over to the crack to look it over. It was shaped like a physical, vertical crack in the wall, irregular, with ragged edges, perhaps three inches wide at its widest and about six feet from end to tapered end. Bile rose in the back of Dante's throat as he got close to it, making him glad he'd had no dinner yet. Even incomplete, this was a strong link between the two worlds, a direct passage from the human world to the world of demons with no vestibule or mediating cross plane.

The gap was wide enough to permit a glimpse of what was behind it. It was a wide space, like a cavern, with floor and walls built of living tissue. Dante shifted to one side to change his perspective, and saw a mass of _something_ attached to the wall with strings of membrane. Thick black chains, similar to the ones securing the demon on this side of the break, were attached to black rings set into the wall and passed through the mass, as though binding it. The mass itself was the slick red of living flesh, and it pulsed, not like a beating heart but like something inflated with blood with each beat of a heart. Thick purple veins snaked out of it, disappearing into the moist floor, and they, too, pulsed. The entire scene was hazy, as if viewed through waves of rising heat, drifting in and out of focus and bathed in violet light.

"That's definitely hell," said Dante, although there had never been any doubt in his mind. He moved again check out more of the cavern behind the crack, but there was nothing else to see. Just more of the walls, with the white shadows of what might have been bone embedded in them far to one side. If there was an exit from the space, it was out of view. There was nothing else of interest.

The rattle of chains behind him alerted him that the devil on the floor was rousing; the nausea subsided somewhat as Dante walked away from the crack to deal with the creature. It was awake and testing its bindings when he approached it, and it looked up at him warily.

"Where's Ralis?" it asked.

"Don't worry about Ralis," said Dante. "You should be worrying about me."

The demon looked around, and then frowned when it spotted the limp hulks on the floor. "You killed them, didn't you?" it asked.

"I didn't like the way they looked at me," said Dante.

"If you killed them, you don't need to kill me."

"That's true, but maybe I'll kill you anyway, for fun."

There was a knife on the floor near the bound demon's feet that Dante hadn't noticed before. He picked it up. There was little ornamentation, just a plain black blade and a handle finished with what was probably bone, but it was warm with power in his hand. The demon squirmed when it saw the knife. "You, you don't need to do this," it said. "If you killed Ralis, you don't need to kill me."

Dante crouched beside the thing, and turned the blade over in his hand. "I have to be honest with you here," he said. "I actually have no idea why Ralis was trying to open a portal for me. I've never heard of Surgot before in my life."

The demon's eyes widened. "Oh," it said weakly.

"I need to know what's going on here. You can tell me, or I can sacrifice you to open that portal and hope there's a clue on the other side."

"You're Dante, aren't you?" The devil laughed, unsteadily. "I knew you'd kill them. I told them, Dante will fucking kill you idiots. But they didn't listen to me!"

"Sacrifice it is," said Dante.

"No, no, no!" said the devil before Dante could stand. "I'll tell you! I'll tell you. Except, ahhh ..." It cleared its throat. "I ... actually don't know." It squawked when Dante put the knife under its throat. "I just heard them talking! That's all! I'm not one of them!" It laughed again, nervously. "I mind my own business, I stay out of your way! You don't have to kill me!"

"You stay out of my way," said Dante. "What the hell does that mean?" Before the demon could respond, Dante answered himself. "You live here. You know I'm here, and you lay low. Don't you?"

"Can you blame me?"

Dante supposed he couldn't. And that wasn't important anyway. "So what did you hear them say?"

The demon shifted in its bonds, testing them again. It was tightly chained, though, the black metal wrapping its limbs and body. It probably couldn't shapeshift without cutting itself to pieces on the loops of metal, which meant it was completely helpless. That was starting to do things to Dante. "They belong to Surgot," said the demon. "Or, did, I guess. They were going to open a portal for you on his orders. I thought, what the hell, Dante is coming _here,_ and you think he's going to just say thank you and go through it? They sure seemed to think so, but I gotta tell you, I knew they were being set up."

"I already knew that," said Dante. He grabbed the demon by its shirt so he could drag it into the circle. "Ralis told me that much. I guess I have to go through the portal to find out what's going on."

"No, no, no, no!" it cried, struggling against the chains around it. "I haven't done anything! I mind my own business! I don't even eat the humans, no matter how tasty they smell!"

"It's nothing personal," Dante told it. The devil's helpless squirming was giving him an erection, and he wasn't sure if this was a terrible thing or not. He didn't really intend to slit this thing's throat in sacrifice, but he might still kill it, and with it bound so securely he could afford to take his time with that. If he wanted to. "I have to assume that Surgot is on the other side of that crack. I want to know what it is and why it's interested in me. You're just a means to that end." He dropped the devil into the center of the circle, righted the candles he'd knocked over, and then examined the runes around the perimeter of the circle to stall and conceal that he actually had no intention of finishing this ritual.

"Oh," said the demon. "Surgot is a lieutenant of Mundus. I thought everyone knew that."

"Not everyone." There was a canister along the wall outside the circle. Dante picked it up and opened it, and was hit in the face with the reek of phosphorous. Good. He started to scuff out the lines in the circle with the toe of his boot. "Nobody gives me the good gossip."

"Oh," said the demon again, and it wriggled to get onto its side to face him. "Surgot was nothing special until you banished Mundus and killed his lieutenants, especially Griffon. That created, y'know, a power vacuum. A lot of the lords tried to step into it. That's when I came here, actually, to get away from it. Just utter chaos on the other side, nobody knowing their place, everyone trying to make a new place for themselves. Surgot wound up on the top of the pile. He's directly under Mundus now. Still fighting a lot of lesser lords who are trying to tear him down, but he's pretty consolidated. When Mundus regains some of his strength, it'll be up to Surgot to work on opening a passage to this world for him."

Dante set down the canister and crouched next to the demon again. "That's interesting," he said, not sure what this meant but knowing he didn't like it.

"So, now you know." The demon gave him a shaky smile. "You can let me go now, right?"

"I could," said Dante. He grabbed the demon by the throat. "But should I?"

"Yes! Yes, you should!" The demon raised its chin, and despite the horrors Dante had seen here tonight, the thing's instant surrender was very gratifying. "I swear to you, I stay out of your way! I don't do anything you wouldn't want me to do!"

"You don't do anything that would get my attention," Dante corrected.

"That's the same thing, right?" The devil struggled a little, but there was nothing it could do.

Dante wanted to kill it. It was trapped by the tight chains. He could do whatever he liked. He could flay it open and spread its organs about like a biology class frog. He could shatter its bones, wait for it to heal the breaks, then smash its bones again. He could make this thing scream until it died of pure exhaustion. There was _nothing_ the demon could do to stop him from whatever he pleased.

Something of that must have been visible on his face, because the devil started to tremble. "Please," it whispered. "Please, I haven't done anything."

"Lately," said Dante. He compressed the creature's throat, not enough to choke. He leaned far enough down that he could have kissed it, liking the smell of its fear. "You haven't done anything _lately."_

"No, at all," the demon insisted. "I'd never been to this world before. I came here and I've been good, I haven't done _anything_ you wouldn't like. I've been good, I promise. I promise."

Fuck. Dante actually believed it. It was a devil, behaving only because it was terrified of him and no other reason, but he recognized that _could_ be sufficient motivation. "What's your name?" he asked.

"B-Brian Payne."

Dante lifted it by the throat and knocked its head against the floor. "Your _real_ name."

"Exultans," it squeaked.

Disgusted, Dante rolled it over and checked how the chains were fastened around it, then went searching for the key to the black metal lock. "You're sticking around here because of the hellgate, aren't you? Because it's easier here than somewhere else."

The demon made a nervous sound. "Um, yeah ... it's certainly not because this is the _safest_ town for a devil."

"Keep thinking that." The devil that had spoken with Dante, the last one he'd killed, had a chain around its waist and some implements attached to it. Two of them were keys. "Because if I find out you've left town, I'm going to come find you and kill you." Dante came back to the bound demon and smiled down at it. "I'll enjoy it."

"I won't!" the devil said, hopeful now. "I'll stay right here, and live quietly, and no matter how tender and delicious the humans smell, I won't eat _any_ of them. You'll never hear of me again!"

Dante unlocked the chain and gave it a yank, which flipped the demon over and over as the chain unrolled from around its body. Its wrists were locked separately behind its back, and before releasing them Dante measured out a length of chain, laid it along the floor, and pulled out Ebony.

"What are you doing?" asked the devil, crawling up onto its knees. Dante didn't reply. He took aim at the chain, sent as much power into the gun as he could, and fired. It took more than a dozen bullets, charged as strongly as he could make them, to break it.

The demon cowered while Dante broke the chain, and tried to back away when the devil hunter finally lifted the short length he'd shot off of the longer piece. "What's that for?" the demon asked. It flinched when Dante smiled at it.

"This is insurance," said Dante. He wrapped the short chain around the devil's neck and used the black metal lock to secure it. It was a bit snug, but that was fine with Dante. He wanted the devil to be able to feel it, always. "If you try to shapeshift, you'll cut your throat open, and maybe decapitate yourself."

"No!" it cried. "You can't do this to me! I'll be defenseless!"

The second key fit the lock that bound the demon's wrists. Dante released it, and its hands went to its throat and the new collar around it. "I _can_ do this to you. I just did, in fact."

"Please, Dante. Don't do this to me!"

Dante took Rebellion in his hand. "You'd prefer I kill you now?"

It backed away, scrabbling on its hands and heels. "... no," it said.

"Then say, Thank you, Dante, for sparing my pathetic life."

It cringed, and took a moment to work out the words, but it spoke as directed. "Thank you, Dante," it said quietly, "for sparing my pathetic life."

_Yes._ Dante smiled at it, very turned on now. "Say, Thank you, Dante, for not taking me home and using me as entertainment."

The demon again repeated the words, its eyes on the floor.

"You're not even as defenseless as a human," said Dante. "Stop whining and get out of here."

Nobody needed to tell the devil twice. It scrambled to its feet and was out the door like a shot. That handled, Dante adjusted the erection that dealing with that demon had given him, and turned toward the crack.

At some point during his interrogation, a pale, eyeless, fleshy lump of a demon had moved onto the pulsing mass. It had settled upon it, and was drilling its rear portion down into the mass using thrusting motions that looked disturbingly sexual. These demons he'd killed had expected him to go there. The Surgot they'd spoken about had wanted him to see this, and know about it. That did not look like anywhere Dante wanted to go, although he certainly would have if there'd been an identified need for him to do it.

Dante pulled out Ivory and aimed through the crack, but hesitated before firing. His first impulse was to shoot either the flesh-like mass or the demon that seemed to be screwing it, and see what happened, but since he'd been guided straight here by forces unknown he had to second-guess that impulse. Perhaps that was what he was intended to do. Dante did not want to do anything that some unseen power intended for him to do.

There was nothing else to see here, and it would be far easier to close the crack during the day. Dante gathered up the black metal chain and the remaining lock, but left the rest of the detritus where it was; the smell of decomposing devil, already rising off the corpse farthest from the crack, and the nauseating _wrongness_ of the crack itself should keep any human at bay. Dante wasn't worried about either Exultans or the demon who had escaped him meddling with this thing. It was safe to leave it as it was until morning. He folded up the chain to a manageable length and threw it over his shoulder, and walked out.

* * *

The smell of the woman's blood, smeared inside his coat, accompanied Dante home. There was a trace of sourness in the scent, extremely faint but unmistakable. Dante had seen some repulsive things tonight, but walking home followed by that blood scent kept the devils he'd conquered in his mind, and that fed his arousal. By the time he'd crossed downtown, he could think of almost nothing other than walking in the door and fucking Nero into the wall. He could almost feel the kid's strong body in his arms, and hear his moans.

The urge was powerful enough that Dante made himself stop on the steps in front of the door to Devil May Cry, and take off his coat and breathe in the cool air, so that he'd be able to control himself if Nero weren't in the mood. He badly, badly wanted to fuck the kid, even more now than before, now that he was close enough to have a sense of the devil inside the building. However, although Nero was often agreeable, this was not true invariably. Dante had to be prepared to take care of the problem himself.

Nero looked up when Dante came in, and set down the book he was reading. "How'd it go?"

"Really weird." Dante threw his jacket onto the coatrack to get rid of the blood smell, then looked the kid over. Nero was sitting sideways on the couch, wearing those soft pants and one of his black shirts. He looked so, so good, and there was such a powerful demon under his skin. "I don't know if you'll believe me when I tell you. I hope you won't take this wrong, kid, but I want you right now in the worst way."

"Huh." Nero had been sitting with his knees up to read, but he now stretched out his legs, spreading his thighs and throwing one arm over the back of the couch. "What's the worst way?"

Dante crossed the room to set the heavy chain down on his desk and take off his guns, then hang Rebellion on the wall. "I was thinking, upstairs, on your knees."

"That seems like a pretty conventional way to me."

Shit, Nero was sprawled out like an invitation, and Dante reached down to settle the way his erection rested in his pants. "Is that a yes," asked Dante, "or a no?" Nero's posture said _yes,_ and Dante hoped to hell the answer out of the kid's mouth was also yes.

"That's a, Come kiss me and we'll find out," said Nero.

That was close enough for Dante. He went to the couch and at first just leaned over it to take the offered kiss, but Nero's hands went up his sides and pulled him lower; in moments Dante was on the couch as well, easing his body down between Nero's hands and thighs. The kid was warm and smelled _amazing,_ fragrant and clean, and he tasted vaguely sweet, like he'd had cookies for dinner or something. Dante ground his erection against Nero's hip, and then was unable to stop his hips from jerking forward as though he could fuck the kid through their clothes. Nero raised his thigh between Dante's legs to offer some resistance, making it feel _fantastic_ when Dante jerked his hips a second time.

He wanted to fuck Nero so, so much. He wanted to feel skin against his, claw marks on his back, and the heat of the kid's body around his cock. He wanted the submission of this devil, who bowed to no one else. He tore his mouth away from Nero's and kissed down to the side of the kid's throat, where he nipped under Nero's jaw. "I want you so much," he groaned.

"Wait." Nero turned his head, offering his throat to Dante's teeth, but said again, "Wait. Dante, wait."

"Why?" Dante wanted to bite, but restricted himself, with great difficulty, to another nip. Nero smelled so good, felt so good.

"Let's go upstairs."

Holy shit. Dante bit down on the arm of the couch beside Nero's head, chafing his erection against the kid's thigh and trying to control the sexual aggression already hot inside him. For an instant he felt the prick of claws against his back through his shirt, and he had to bite down harder on the leather to stifle the snarl and get a grip.

"Sorry," said Nero, and the hands on Dante's body dropped away. "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that."

It took a minute before Dante could unhook his teeth from the arm of the couch and say, "It's okay, kid. I'm going upstairs. Lock the front door, would you?"

"Sure. I'll be up there in a minute."

Were it not for Nero's promise to soon join him, Dante wasn't sure he would have made it all the way to the bedroom without breaking down and jacking off. His hands shook as he stripped off his shirt and unbuckled his pants, but it was easier to take control of himself with cool air on his skin and Nero downstairs. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this insane with lust; he knew it had happened, with Nero in the past, but his thoughts were too scattered to bring it to mind.

There were rattling sounds from downstairs, and then the lights down there went off. Dante sat on the edge of the bed to take off his boots, with his pants only half-undone, and he thought he should strip the rest of the way but too distracted to do it. He picked at his gloves, but then Nero walked through the darkened doorway, putting a growl in Dante's throat and his gloves right out of his mind.

"You're really hot for it," said Nero. He shed his own shirt on the way across the room and settled into Dante's lap, dropping a couple of items to one side and then turning his head to again offer his throat and shoulder. He made a sound when Dante gripped his upper arms and bit down hard, halfway between a soft grunt of pain and a soft moan of desire. "Yes. Do it again."

Dante bit the kid again, tonguing the smooth skin between his teeth, and he could feel the change that took place in Nero's body. Nero leaned forward, encouraging more, and he became pliant and yielding; Dante turned, pulling Nero around and down, and putting him onto his back on the bed. The kid's arms went around him, drawing him into a close embrace and a deep kiss.

The force of lust that Dante had lost during the relocation quickly returned, except that now Dante had what he wanted: Nero's skin against his own, Nero's hands and claws and body heat, and the brightness of the devil that he was. Dante growled and turned away from the kiss, biting down on Nero's shoulder a third time, until Nero was panting and pressing himself upward against Dante's body, scrabbling against the older hunter's back with blunt fingernails and sharp claws. The first touch of pain was light – a threat only – and it put Dante almost out of his mind. He had to have this devil, now. He had to be inside the kid before he lost his sanity.

"Hold on, hold on," said Nero, and it took a moment for Dante to comprehend the words. When he did, he snarled in frustration; he needed to _fuck_ the creature trapped under him. It took great effort to back off and put a little space between them.

The kid used the space to pull Dante's pants down, and a glimmer of understanding returned to Dante's mind. It brought some ability to reason with it, and Dante whispered, "Hurry."

"I am, I am. Just hold on."

At the first touch of Nero's warm hand to his bared erection, Dante snarled again and snapped his hips forward. "Damn," Nero whispered. "What the hell did you kill out there?"

Dante didn't try to speak. It was all he could do to not grab the devil under him by the wrists and pin him down and just fuck the hell out of him. He couldn't even remember why that would be bad, he just knew he shouldn't do it, and that it was very important that he not. Nero's hand on his cock, sliding on a condom and then lubricant, was intensely pleasurable and Dante had a hard time holding still for it; he wound up panting next to the kid's ear.

After Nero got out of his own pants but before he could turn over, Dante summoned enough presence of mind to whisper, "Claw me."

The kid obeyed immediately, raking his talons down Dante's back in four lines of liquid fire. The slash of pain seared away all that was rational from Dante's mind; as soon as Nero was on his knees and Dante could feel a hand guide his cock into position, he rammed his erection into the kid's body with no further thought at all.

Nero gave a pained hiss, and then another, louder one when Dante bit hard into the back of his shoulder. Between the hot pain on his back and the hot grip of the kid's body around his cock, Dante couldn't think and didn't want to try. He only wanted to _feel._

Beneath him, Nero began to pant, then groan, and finally he began to make the most amazing animal sounds of pleasure and need. His body rocked with the force of Dante's thrusts, and on some level Dante became aware that the kid was jacking himself off. He let Nero support his weight and clasped his left hand over Nero's on the younger man's cock, wanting to feel that, too.

"Oh, fuck," moaned Nero. "Oh, fuck, Dante ..."

"Yes," Dante whispered, the only coherent thing his mind could produce. Nero was masturbating furiously, the muscles of his arm taut and rigid under Dante's hand, straining toward orgasm as he took the hard fucking Dante was giving him. Feeling that, feeling the uncoordinated jerks of Nero's arm as this powerful devil not only accommodated Dante's lust but actively enjoyed it, was all Dante needed. He thrust four more times, riding the crest of each one higher, until he came hard with his teeth in Nero's shoulder.

* * *

An hour later, Dante lay on his back with Nero propped above him, describing his almost surreal discovery in that devil den. "Exultans was right," he said. "Those things were set up."

"That's fucked up," said Nero.

"It's not unusual for stronger demons to use weaker ones as cannon fodder," said Dante, "but I'm not sure I've encountered this precise situation before. The women who call this afternoon, Mrs. Baker, I don't think she was in on it. I think it was whoever told her where her son could be found. I think these devils purposefully kept the kid for a month to make his mother frantic, and then someone told her what she needed to know to call me and send me there today."

"I don't suppose she knew who that was."

"Phone call from someone she thought was a neighbor," said Dante. "But when I asked the neighbor, he had no idea what I was talking about."

Nero nodded. "You're being manipulated."

"I had that same thought."

"So, now what? Why would a demon want to show you a crack to hell just in time for you to prevent it becoming a gate to hell?" Nero glanced from Dante's face down to his chest, and then ran the glowing palm of his right hand over Dante's skin.

That felt damned good. "That's a good question," said Dante. He brought Nero's hand to his lips to kiss the kid's fingers, then let go. "I'm not sure what I'm expected to do with this information."

"Close the crack, I hope."

"I'm going to go as soon as I get up tomorrow. It's easier to do that kind of thing in daylight."

Nero was quiet for a few moments, just running his hand over Dante's chest. The blue flesh was warm, like human skin, but unnaturally hard, and the claws on the tips of his fingers grazed over Dante's chest as Nero moved his hand. The scratches felt nice, too light to be painful. "Were you followed again?" the kid asked at last.

"Yeah," said Dante. He'd almost forgotten about it.

"Something came around the office today. I went outside and looked for it, but couldn't spot it."

Interesting. "When?"

"Around eight-thirty."

"That's about the time I was being tailed."

Nero nodded. "There's more than one." He sighed and lowered himself to the bed, laying on his side. "This is fucked up, Dante. I don't like being surveilled."

"I'm not sure what to do about it." Dante rolled to face his younger lover. "I can barely tell when it's there. There might be times when it _is_ there and I can't tell. And I know it can move quickly. I don't know if I'd be able to catch it if I chased it."

Turning over onto his back, Nero lifted his right hand as though examining the glow. His expression was relaxed and thoughtful. "So that's all you did? Find this crack, kill three no-account demons set up by their master, and fuck around with another?"

"I kept them from killing a lady," said Dante. "Don't forget that part."

"I'm trying to figure out what got you so worked up you could barely be bothered to say hello before jumping me. That's the worst I've seen you in months."

Dante laughed. "Worst?" he said. "That was a _bad_ thing then?"

"Pfft," said Nero. "You know what I mean."

Yeah, Dante did. He thought about it. "I wish I could say it was something different, but it was probably Exultans. I'm sure you know how it is, when you've got a devil helpless, except this one was handed to me that way." He reached out and ran his fingers through the fringe of Nero's hair, and because the kid was in a good post-coital mood this was tolerated. "I feel kind of fucked up, though, because finding those humans there was not pleasant. The woman will be okay, but those three guys were there, alive, for a while, at least one of them since the middle of May. I think the very best outcome for them would be to lose some of their memory when the charm wears off."

"Could that happen?"

"It was a really strong charm. It might."

Nero turned a bit, discouraging more petting from Dante. That was disappointing, but Dante let his hand drop. "When you go to close the crack," said Nero, "I want to come with you."

Would that be a good idea? Dante asked, "Why?"

"Just to get out of the house."

It would be a great idea if the kid weren't impaired, and Dante would have never hesitated to have Nero at his back. But the kid _was_ impaired. He was absolutely incapacitated for anywhere from five to thirty seconds when he had one of those flashbacks, and not completely aware for up to two minutes afterward. That was the last thing either of them needed if something came out of the woodwork at them.

On the other hand, leaving Nero at home hadn't kept him out of harm's way two weeks ago. "Okay," said Dante.

* * *

Dante woke early, because there was a devil beside him.

He'd been sleeping lightly anyway, so it was easy for him to slip into half-wakefulness. Perhaps Nero made some kind of sound, or moved in some way that intruded into Dante's dreams. In any case, Dante found himself drowsy but awake with a devil next to him, and he couldn't get back to sleep after that. It was light out anyway, if very early, so there didn't seem to be a lot of point in trying; he hadn't gotten as much sleep as he'd wanted, but it seemed like he rarely did these days.

Nero had his back to Dante. The kid often slept with his hands held up to his chest, like he was curling in on himself, and he was doing so now. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Dante to put an arm around Nero and trap the kid's hands against his body, rendering him, if not defenseless, at least in a very poor position to defend himself. Dante's mind drifted lazily to the chained demon the others had intended to sacrifice. He imagined the creature laid in the circle - probably next to the body of the human woman, although whether or not she would have been alive at that point was not something Dante could predict – to wait for the gate-opening ritual to progress to the point where the sacrifice's death could be used. The sacrifice needed to be conscious when slain, capable of fear and pain, to provide the needed fuel.

Dante had no idea what that black metal was, but it was damned strong and would be able to contain even Nero. The kid would flip if his arms were forcibly spread, but he could handle some other kinds of restraint without problem, and Dante would have been willing to bet that having his arms bound against his body would cause Nero no difficulties. Then Dante would have been able to do whatever he liked to the kid.

It was only the fact that he was sleepy and not fully awake that put these thoughts in his mind, and Dante knew that. It was only the fact that he was more devil than human when he woke this way, roused by the power of the creature sleeping helplessly beside him. He knew he'd be disgusted at himself later, if he bothered to remember these early-morning fantasies. At the moment, he was too lethargic to care.

He leaned forward, to put his nose into Nero's hair and breathe in the kid's scent, and the sudden tensing of Nero's body betrayed that he'd woken.

"Good morning," said Nero, without moving.

The greeting woke something in Dante, something civilized, and all thoughts of chaining Nero slipped out of his mind. It nevertheless took a minute for Dante to say, "Morning, kid."

Only then did Nero twist onto his back. "What do you want for breakfast?"

Dante turned the idea of breakfast around in his mind a few times. "I don't care," he said eventually. "You decide." He hadn't had dinner the evening before, he recalled. Hanging around that crack to the demon world had put him off any desire for food last night, but he was definitely hungry now. Nevertheless, he remembered that he'd be going back there today. "I shouldn't eat very much," he added. "Neither should you."

"Okay." Nero gave Dante a light kiss, just a touch of his lips to Dante's, and then rolled out of bed.

Dante remained where he was as Nero pulled on some clothes, and closed his eyes. "I'm going back to sleep," he said. "Wake me when it's ready."

A hand went through his hair. "Lazy sack," said Nero, but an affectionate tone carried the words. Dante was asleep again as soon as the kid walked out the bedroom door, and took his demonic aura with him.

* * *

The stink of decomposing devil was strong enough to smell half a block away. Dante doubted the building that contained the crack had been disturbed; if anyone had tried to enter in the twelve hours since Dante had been there, the smell would have probably driven them straight back out.

Nero pulled the side of his hoodie up over his nose and mouth a moment after walking through the door. "Holy shit," he said.

"It's probably worse in the back," said Dante. "You don't have to come in with me." He got no reply to that, and when he moved farther into the building Nero was right behind him.

In the large rear space, the long, dirty windows near the ceiling let in some sunlight, and as a result the twisted _wrongness_ of the crack was far less than it had been during the night. The demons he'd slain were in varying states of decay, from almost intact near the crack, to a mass of unidentifiable flesh and crumbling bone farther from it. The stink here, with three corpses in an enclosed space, was so overpowering it made Dante cough a couple of times.

"This is something you don't see every day," said Nero. Holding the fabric of his hoodie to his face, he walked toward the crack and gave it a slow, cautious once-over from twenty feet away.

The scene was definitely undisturbed. The snuffed candles and scuffed circle were as Dante had left them, a dry puddle of blood in the center. Dante stepped into the broken circle; in the light of day the runes burned into the floorboards around the circle's perimeter were easily readable. A standard gate opening circle, just as he'd thought.

Nero moved closer when Dante did, but his interest was in the crack itself rather than the circle laid out before it. From where he stood, Dante could see part of the fleshy, pulsing mass through the crack, and that eyeless demon – or perhaps another like it – was still attached to it, still driving its rear into the mass in long, steady strokes, as though fucking it.

"What the hell," said Nero. He moved closer to peer through the opening, but then put a hand to his mouth and moved quickly backward. The nausea that any passage to the demon world created was far reduced by the dirty sunlight filtering into the room, but still enough to make anyone gag at close range. "What is that thing _doing?"_

"I don't know," said Dante. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"So, what's the plan? We're just closing it, right?"

"Right." Dante pointed at the runes burned into the floor, and then dropped the packages of sandpaper he'd stopped to buy on the way over. "We'll need to sand these down and mark new ones, and put down more phosphorous. This won't be hard. My old man made it easier to close holes than open them."

It took about two hours to rearrange the circle. The floorboards were solid, and when sanded clean they left a fairly smooth surface upon which to carve the new runes; Dante let Nero do most of the sanding, while he made the new marks with the black dagger he'd found the night before. The stink of the dead devils didn't abate at all, but like most stenches it became more tolerable over time as Dante got used to it. He and Nero didn't speak much as they worked, which left Dante largely alone with his own thoughts, thoughts which quickly turned around to the kid next to him.

Nero knelt over the sandpaper in his hand, using the coarse grit to strip away the burned wood, then the finer grit to leave a smooth surface for Dante to work. Whenever Dante looked the kid's way he wore an intent expression, completely focused on the incredibly boring task he was assigned, and as time went on his skin and the ends of his hair started to collect bits of wood dust. He looked so damned good. Dante wanted to roll him to the floor and bite him. It became more and more difficult for Dante to concentrate on the shape of the runes he was carving, more difficult for him to keep his mind on what he was doing.

When Dante was finished with the runes and stood up to lay down the phosphorous lines, he had an aching erection. He had to ignore that for now. It was barely afternoon, the perfect time to run this thing, and therefore a terrible time to spend an hour or two screwing Nero.

The candles were still usable. Dante had Nero stand well back as he ran through the closing ritual; the high, bright sun outside made it a hundred times easier than it would have been in darkness. Ten minutes of chanting in the language he barely remembered learning from a father he almost could not recall, a little blood from a cut to his finger, and the candle flames turned green. The phosphorus lit itself. The sickly violet light from the crack in the wall dimmed, and a bit of dust wafted down from the ceiling. The pale, eyeless demon was still sexually assaulting the pulsing mass when the crack slammed shut.

The nauseating _wrongness_ diminished instantly. Dante walked over to the crack, which was now just that: a crack in the paint that exposed the cinder blocks that made up the wall. He ran his fingers over it and discovered no hint of a dimensional rift.

The nausea in his belly didn't _completely_ go away, however. Nero noticed it, too. "Is it just the smell," asked the kid, "or is that crack not completely gone?"

Dante looked around the bare, dirty room. "Maybe there's another one," he said. He pointed to the opposite side of the room. "Go over there and check."

He and Nero scoured the perimeter of the room, all of the floor and as high up the walls as they could reach, but found nothing. The farther away from the crack in the wall that Dante moved, the more normal he felt. That made the conclusion obvious.

"It's not really closed," said Nero. "Is it?"

"No." Dante didn't like that. He examined the closing circle he'd constructed, thinking that maybe he'd fucked it up somehow. Considering how distracted he'd gotten near the end of the rune-carving, that would not surprise him, but nothing seemed to be wrong. The place on the wall where the crack had been looked like it was completely inside this world. It _looked_ like it was closed. It _should_ have been closed. There was no sign that it was anything but closed ... except that Dante knew, in the pit of his stomach, that on some level it was still open.

"Now what?" asked Nero.

"I have no idea." Dante stepped back, and looked around the room again. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.

"What do you mean, you have no idea?"

"I mean I know some things about how to open gates and how to close them," said Dante, "but I don't know everything. I don't know even close to everything." Shit. What could he do about this? "This exceeds my expertise."

"Well, hell," said Nero. He went to the crack in the paint and, like Dante, ran his glowing hand over it. "We can't just leave it open."

Dante was inclined to agree, but he wasn't sure if they had a choice. He couldn't see the crack. He didn't know what he'd done wrong, or even if he'd done _anything_ wrong. What if he'd done it correctly, and this thing just somehow resisted it? "I am at a complete loss," he said.

"Maybe do that ritual again," said Nero.

"That wouldn't help."

"Why not?"

"Because ..." Dante paused. He honestly didn't have an answer to that. "Hell, what could it hurt? Light the candles."

With the runes carved and ready, it didn't take long to sweep away the burned phosphorous and lay down a new set of lines. Dante examined the entire array to be _positive_ there were no flaws in it, then took a deep breath to fill his mind with devil stink instead of thoughts of fucking Nero against the wall. He ran through the ritual again. The reaction was much weaker this time; the shade of the candlelight barely changed, and the phosphorous only smoldered.

When Dante was finished, Nero walked around the circle to the broken paint, and again ran his clawed hand over the mark. "I don't think that worked," he said, and the unchanged hint of nausea in Dante's stomach made him agree. "Sorry."

"Don't be," said Dante. "I didn't think it would, but it was worth a try." Fucking hell, he was hard. It was becoming impossible to think about anything _but_ Nero's body. Was that the problem? That he was massively distracted?

"So tell me," said Nero. "This place absolutely reeks, and we just had some really intense sex last night. Is there any good reason for me to seriously want to go down on you right now?"

"... no," said Dante, suddenly understanding. When he looked toward Nero, he saw that the kid understood, too.

"We need to get away from this thing," said Nero.

"Right."

They didn't make it as far as home. Dante broke into another abandoned building a few blocks away, and in the dusty darkness they embraced, and kissed, and moaned into one another's mouths. Neither of them had expected to want to fuck today, so they were completely unprepared, but Nero accommodated this by – as promised – going to his knees and sucking the hell out of Dante's cock. Dante had to spread his legs and brace himself against the wall to keep from falling, because Nero made desperate little sounds as he sucked, like he wanted to do this more than anything, and that was enough to take all the strength out of Dante's knees. After he came and after he came back to himself, Dante put Nero on his back on the dirty floor and stroked him to orgasm, kissing the taste of his own semen out of the kid's mouth as he did it.

Dante felt worlds better afterward, and if Nero's relaxed breathing was any indication, so did the kid. That didn't stop Dante from being highly disturbed by all of this.

Nero seemed to be having similar thoughts. "I don't like this, Dante," he said after a long silence.

"Neither do I."

The kid looked like he had more to say, but his stomach rumbled under Dante's hand, and Dante had to laugh a little. "Maybe we should get something to eat," said Dante. He still had his pay from yesterday in his coat pocket, and he pulled out the two hundred dollars to show it.

"Oh, damn," said Nero. "That means pizza, doesn't it?"

"You don't have to eat it." Dante levered himself to his feet, and brushed down his coat and pants to get some of the dust off.

"If you put a pizza in front of me right now and try to keep me from eating it," said Nero, "I'll probably bite your fingers off."

"Pizza it is, then." Dante offered a hand to help Nero up. "And maybe some cookies."

"I got some cookies yesterday," said Nero. "Lemon with a sweet glaze. They're pretty good. You'll like them."

What had gone wrong? Maybe it was just the distraction. Maybe if Dante came back later, alone, without Nero there, he could close the crack the rest of the way. If that didn't work ... Dante didn't know what the next step would be.


	3. Chapter 3

Few things made Nero feel more worthless than the phone ringing while Dante was out of the office.

It began with the initial startled-terror reaction at the first ring, with Nero's heart leaping into his throat in anticipation of a panicked flashback. It had been weeks since he'd last gotten one from an incoming phone call, but that didn't stop his body from gearing up for it; his hands were shaking when he set his book down.

He took a steadying breath to slow his thudding heart, and stood up to answer the phone. There was a notepad on the desk for him to take down the details if it turned out to be a job, and he approached that with apprehension as well even though, again, it had been more than a month since the last notepad-related panic attack.

But it wasn't the fear reactions that an incoming phone call gave him that made him feel so pointless and useless. It was the fact that he was such a broken-down wreck that all he could do was take down the details for Dante to handle later. It was the reminder that this simple receptionist work was, literally, the only thing he was good for and he was barely capable of even this much.

He picked up the phone. "Devil May Cry."

There was a brief pause, and then a low voice said, "Dante isn't in, is he?"

"Nope," said Nero. He took a deep breath and picked up the pen. His heart thumped, but nothing else happened. "Want to leave a message?"

"No. I wanted to talk to you. What's your name?"

The hell? "Why do you want to know?"

"Just curious," said the caller. "I hadn't known there was another spawn of Sparda to deal with."

All of Nero's dull despair evaporated, instantly forgotten. "Who is this?" he asked.

The caller's voice dropped into an even lower tone. "How did you come by Sparda's blood? I've asked around, but no one has heard of any lineage besides Dante and Vergil."

"Who _is_ this?" Nero asked again.

The caller continued as though he hadn't spoken. "One would think that if there'd been any other halfbreeds like Dante in the past, people would tend to remember it. So where did you come from? You have less of Sparda in you than Dante does. Is Dante your father?"

Holy shit. Despite the alarming nature of this call, Nero had to laugh. "I fucking hope not," he said. "Who the hell are you?"

"An interested party only."

A hint of a sensation crawled up the inside of Nero's right arm. The shade of his devil bringer did not change, and the feeling was faint. He rubbed his fingers together and, annoyed, looked toward the windows.

"I know why Surgot is interested in Dante," said the caller. "He doesn't know about you, though. Not yet. I watched you slay Scolaphis. Surgot's shadow left before Dante arrived, and never realized you're not Dante, and I decided not to tell him."

Something about this was leaving Nero very cold inside. None of this was new, exactly ... he knew that they were both being watched and he knew that Dante had been the target of that demon that had attacked the shop. Nevertheless ... "What do you want?" he asked.

"Want?" The voice laughed, and if there hadn't already been hints that this was some kind of demon, Nero would have known anyway just from the timbre of that laugh. "At the moment, I am curious only, and I want only to have my curiosity satisfied."

"Yeah?" said Nero. "Too fucking bad. I'm not playing any games with you."

"An exchange, then, perhaps? You tell me your name, and how you came to have Sparda's blood in your veins, and I tell you why Surgot harasses Dante."

Nero had to think about that. He didn't want to fill a strange demon in on his family history (or lack thereof), but the information was harmless, and wouldn't it help to know more about what was going on? "You first," he said.

The devil laughed again. "You doubt my honor?"

"Yes," said Nero. "Of course I do."

"A wise child. Very well. Surgot fears the son of Sparda. Mundus is powerful, you see. More powerful now, even in his weakness and defeat, than Surgot. He was at his height fifteen years ago, many times stronger than he is today, and yet Dante destroyed him. What hope would Surgot have, were Dante to turn an eye his way?"

"Who is Mundus?" asked Nero.

A long pause. "What?" asked the demon.

"Dante's mentioned him a couple of times," said Nero, "but never said who he is. I'd never heard of him. Who is he?"

Another, even longer silence, until Nero wondered if the demon had hung up. "Hello?" said Nero. "You still there?"

"Yes," said the demon. "I'm just ... how can you not know?"

It sounded genuinely confused, which was the only reason Nero became only irritated and not furious. "Forget it," he said.

The creature answered him anyway. "Mundus is the One and the All," said the demon. "He leads the demon world, and he _is_ the demon world. So long as he exists, we exist, and so long as we exist, he exists." Another pause, briefer this time. "It was Mundus who declared, thousands of years ago, that we were to conquer the world of humans, and it was that event that caused Sparda to turn on us all."

"Oh," said Nero. Now he got it. This thing was talking about the devil god that Sparda defeated. "Oh, okay. I'm with you now. The Church always called him Arvre. I'd never heard him called Mundus before."

"Arvre," said the demon, slowly, tasting the word. "I've never heard him called _that_ before."

"Right. So. Dante destroyed something stronger than Surgot, so Surgot is pissing itself. Right?"

The devil chuckled. "Mundus was not destroyed, only weakened and contained. And I would not say Surgot is _pissing himself._ He ... is concerned, however. He wishes to take Mundus' power and place, you see. He gathers himself. He has not yet the power to make an attempt, but when he does he will need to slay many, many humans to open a wide enough gate to enter the place where Mundus rests. He fears that Dante will hear of his plans and come to slay him, first."

"That's probably a valid fear," said Nero.

"I thought so as well. He goes about the easing of his fear quite irrationally, though. He thinks to test Dante, and feel out how threatening Dante really is. In the process, he has only alerted Dante that something is happening. I think he will, himself, bring about the fulfillment of his own fear."

This was _very_ interesting. "Where do you fit in?"

"Ahhh. First, tell me your name, if you would."

Nero was reluctant, but this devil was being very helpful, and there was no harm in it. And he _had_ agreed. "Nero."

"Nero," the devil repeated, and the way it said the word, almost licking the syllables, sent an unpleasant chill up Nero's spine. When it continued, however, its tone was back to what passed for normal with it. "I am no one of importance. Only, as I said, an interested party. I have sworn an oath of loyalty to Surgot, but it was a false one. My loyalty remains with Mundus. My master rests now, and has ordered us to rest also, and wait. Dante may yet turn out to be mortal, you see. He remains powerful, but he ages. We would prefer to leave him in peace, and let time defeat him, if that is possible. Surgot is taking actions that would draw Dante's attention back toward Mundus, which is not in my master's interests."

That made sense, although it was disturbing for Nero to learn that he'd been chatting semi-amicably with a servant of the devil god that the Church had taught him to hate and fear. "I guess I can see that," he said.

"Surgot's shadows watch Dante. He comes, he goes. They know nothing of you, however. They know only that he keeps a devil in his home. Surgot imagines you to be a slave or a pet, or perhaps a leashed dog standing guard over Dante's things while he is out. Surgot thinks nothing of you, and knows nothing of your link to Sparda. Now." The creature's tone dropped back into that almost seductive tone that made Nero's skin crawl. "What _is_ your link to Sparda?"

Nero thought about telling the thing to go fuck itself, but, again, he had agreed to this exchange. Even though this was a demon, he was a knight of the Order and he wasn't going to make a liar out of himself. "We actually don't know," he said. "I was abandoned as a baby, and adopted and raised by humans. Dante and I have talked about it, and the nearest we can figure is that it probably happened a couple of hundred years ago. Sparda was in the area where I was born, way back then, so it makes sense."

"Oh," said the devil, clearly disappointed. "So you're a sport, or some kind of throwback to a better-bred ancestor."

"Fuck off," Nero said, instantly irritated. "I'm not some kind of animal."

"I'd hoped for something more interesting, but I suppose we can't always get what we want."

The disquieted sensation in Nero's devil bringer grew into a gentle tingle, and he looked again toward the window. He said into the phone, "Why don't you come here, and I'll show you how much I'm like my better-bred ancestors."

"Perhaps some other time. It _has_ been nice talking to you, though. I do hope you'll remember what I've just told you. There is no love lost between your master and mine, but in this instance perhaps they share a common interest."

Holy fuck. Nero suddenly realized that this devil hadn't called to _get_ information at all, but to pass it on, and it would have told him all of that anyway even if he hadn't agreed to anything. "Dante isn't my master," he said, trying not to grind his teeth.

The demon said, as though he hadn't spoken, "Surgot's shadows are weak, and cannot bear daylight. That is how you have escaped detection, Nero. Remain indoors except when the sun is high, so that they continue to believe you to be a guard dog. No more wandering about in the open at dusk, and you will be able to surprise Surgot with your power, when the time comes. The shadows can move between the dark places when the sun is low in the sky, and freely from dusk to dawn. Remember this."

A click on the line told Nero that the thing had hung up, and he dropped the receiver back onto the cradle.

"Fuck," he said. He rubbed the fingers of his right hand together – the sensation of a devil being in the neighborhood was stronger now – and walked toward the window.

It was mid-afternoon and the sun was bright, so that devil was already caught in a lie. Not that there had ever been a reason for Nero to take some anonymous hellspawn at its word. There was no way for him to easily verify the rest of its story, but he already knew it was at least partially bullshit. It would be interesting to see what Dante had to say about all of this when he got home, but Nero already knew he didn't have to try to take any of it seriously.

Then something occurred to him, as he looked at his right hand. Dante always talked about these devils that kept following him as being barely detectable, but Nero was having no problems detecting the one out there now. It didn't feel very powerful, and he could see no change in the glow of the demon flesh of his palm, but it wasn't ephemeral either – just an ordinary demon, apparently. Maybe that meant Nero was just super-good at noticing them, for whatever reason ... or maybe it meant that this was a different kind of demon.

Nero changed into street clothes and put on his coat, and picked up Red Queen so he could go out and see if he could find it.

The trace ... flickered, in a way, as soon as he stepped out of the door, as though the demon began to flee but then changed its mind. He had to do some hunting around to get an idea of which direction to take, going up the road a few hundred feet, then around the corner, then down toward downtown, to see when the feeling became more or less. Whenever he stepped farther away from the building the prickle in his devil bringer decreased, and whenever he moved closer to it, the prickling grew.

Finally Nero reached the only conclusion he could. He looked up and down the façade of Devil May Cry and backed up a few paces to get a running start, then leapt up onto the door hood behind the neon sign, and thence to the roof.

The demon was at the corner, and it yelped when Nero joined it. "I-I-I wasn't ..." it started to say, and then it halted and looked at him more closely. "You're not Dante."

"No shit," said Nero. He drew his sword. "Neither are you."

The devil wore a human form, and looked and dressed like a nondescript man in his twenties, except that it had a tightly-buttoned coat on despite the summery weather. It certainly didn't look like anything Nero would label as _a shadow._ "What are you doing here?" it asked.

"I _live here,"_ said Nero. "What the fuck are _you_ doing here?"

"Oh. _Oh."_ The demon smiled a sympathetic smile. "Is he holding you here? Maybe we can help each other!"

"I think the best thing you can do for me would be to die screaming," said Nero. "That might actually cheer me up."

"No, no, no," it said. "Really, I can help. I'm a bond-breaker. Are you tied to this place? Or to him? I can get rid of it!"

Nero flicked his sword to light it, and half a second later he was slamming the blade down on the spot where the demon had been an instant before. The creature barely got out of the way, though, and Nero reversed the weapon and used the momentum of the miss to smash the hilt into the devil's face.

It yelped and skidded across the roof. "Stop, stop, stop!" it cried. "I can unbind you! I promise!" It clapped a hand over its nose and scrabbled backward, half-crawling on its knees and one hand.

"I don't need _unbinding,"_ said Nero, advancing on it. "I need you to fucking die so I can go back to wasting my life in peace."

When the devil scrambled back to its feet its coat was askew, and the black chain around its throat could now be seen. Nero, who had been about to grab the thing with his devil bringer so he could kill it, sighed in annoyance. "Fucking hell," he said. "You're Exultans, aren't you?"

It perked up. "He told you about me," it said.

Nero wasn't _certain_ that this meant he wasn't allowed to kill this devil, but he didn't really want to have to tell Dante he'd done it. He gave Red Queen a swipe to knock some of the propellant off the blade. "What are you doing here? I know Dante didn't tell you it was okay to skulk around the place."

The devil opened the throat of its coat to show Nero the rest of the makeshift collar. "There's a key to this lock," it said. "I know Dante kept it. You know where it is, don't you?"

The chain was tight around the thing's throat, locked with two links hanging free. It rested just above the simulacrum of the devil's Adam's apple, and was probably uncomfortable. It actually made Nero smile to see it. "Sorry, he didn't show me where he put it," said Nero, which was true. It was probably in one of the desk drawers, but Nero didn't know that for a fact. It might have been in the pocket of Dante's dirty pants instead.

"Then let me in to find it," said the devil. "I can break whatever hold he has on you."

It took some time for Nero to decide how he wanted to answer. This was not a threatening demon – it couldn't even shapeshift – which meant that he could screw around with it to whatever degree he liked. What would give him the ability to forget the misery of his life as long as possible? "What are you going to do if you get out of that collar?" he asked eventually.

"Go back to my life. That's all!"

"What kind of life do you live that you can't do it with a chain around your neck?"

The demon looked around, to the left and right, and lowered its tone. "I have this business," it said. "It's a pretty good one. How long have you been here? Do you know about drugs?"

"You're a drug dealer?" asked Nero, not sure if he should be horrified or merely furious.

"No, no," said the demon. "I'm a bond-breaker. These drugs, they form bonds, and the humans pay me to break them. I make a lot of money, but it's dangerous."

Nero stared at it. "You do _drug rehab?"_ How likely was this? "You're an unholy drug counselor, literally from hell?"

"It's dangerous," said the devil again. "Drug dealers really don't like it when I take their customers." It laughed, but the laugh was apprehensive. "I have to be able to shapeshift to defend myself, and now I _can't._ They're only human beings, so they're just an annoyance, really, but not if I can't shapeshift."

Was this something Nero was prepared to believe? He wondered to himself, how gullible would he have to be to believe this? Just somewhat, or criminally gullible? "Did you tell this to Dante?" he asked.

A tentative little smile crossed the devil's face. "He didn't seem to want to hear it. Look, I can break whatever hold he has on you. You'll be able to choose your own master, or live without one! Just ... just let me find the key."

"Maybe I like being with Dante," said Nero. "Maybe I don't _want_ your help."

It immediately switched tack. "That's fine, too!" it said. "If you're happy with him as a master, I'm not judging!"

"He's not my fucking master." Nero took an aggressive step toward the thing, and it took a frightened step backward. "Why does everyone keep saying that today? He doesn't _own_ me."

For some reason that made the demon splutter in confusion. "I, ah ..." it said finally. "I ... I, ah ..."

"What?" Nero demanded.

"Okay," said the demon. "I don't even know how that works, but okay." It peered at him. "Or else he has a _very_ strong hold on you. So strong you aren't even allowed to realize it."

"Mainly I realize that I've wasted like five minutes up here talking to you," said Nero, "when I could have killed you four minutes ago and been downstairs napping right now."

"Okay, okay," said the demon. "I'll go, but ... if you're not going to help me, could you at least ask Dante if he'd take this off of me?"

"I'll think about it," said Nero.

"Please. I'm begging, _please._ I don't know what I'll do if I can't shapeshift!"

Nero seriously doubted Dante would be okay with this, but there _was_ an outside chance, so he asked, "Where can he find you, if he decides to let you out of that thing?"

"I work off of Broadway," it said, eager now. "One block south on Thirty-first Street. I'll try to be there tomorrow." It backed toward the edge of the building and hopped up onto the parapet wall. "Thanks for asking him!"

"I haven't done it yet," said Nero, but the demon didn't wait for him, dropping off the wall and down the back side of the building. He heard it land lightly on the street, and then nothing more. Nero jumped down to the street himself and went back inside.

Well, this had spiced up his afternoon a little. He moved his book off the coffee table so he could use the space to clean Red Queen, and thought about his conversations with those two devils. He knew as well as anyone that demons were plausible liars, but that they did not _invariably_ lie. Exultans had a known motive to lie about its doings, but its claims could be double-checked without too much hassle.

The devil who had called, on the other hand ... nothing of that was verifiable. How much should Nero believe? All he knew for sure was that the demon he'd detected in broad daylight _hadn't_ been a shadow after all. So, maybe ... maybe.

He moved the notepad from the desk to the coffee table, so he could write down a few words about what the demon on the phone had told him. Red Queen wasn't very dirty and it took only ten minutes to clean the propellant off the blade and out of the mechanism, after which Nero put the sword away and settled back onto the couch with the notepad and his thoughts.

Where his thoughts went, in the main, was to the depressing place where they had started: that his role in all of this was that of message-taker. He usually took messages from Morrison or from direct call-ins about jobs, but this time it was messages from devils to pass to Dante. If any action needed to be taken on any of this, Dante would be the one taking it. Nero would have to stay home. It wasn't safe to put him amongst humans, and he wasn't reliable enough to go amongst devils.

All he ever did – all he _could_ do – was take messages, read books, keep the place tidy, keep Dante fed, and make sure Dante's sexual needs were met. And that ... was soul-crushing.

He found himself wishing another demon would crash through the wall, and at least give him something productive to do.

* * *

It was almost eleven in the evening when Nero's devil bringer brightened, and Dante finally came in the door. He looked a little tired, but more annoyed and distracted than anything else. "It didn't work," he said, before Nero could even say hello.

"Damn." Nero set his book down and stood up. "How long did you try?"

"From eleven-ish to about an hour ago." Dante hung up his coat and crossed the room to set his guns down on his desk. Nero could see how hard he was, the rigid erection clearly visible beneath the fabric of his pants as he moved.

It was nothing Nero hadn't expected. "Sit down," he said.

"Kid, you don't have to," said Dante, as he put Rebellion on the wall, but he nevertheless pulled out his chair and dropped himself into it.

"I know," said Nero. "I want to."

Dante offered no further protests. He spread his legs and Nero knelt between them, and although Nero started out a little ambivalent that changed as soon as he got Dante's fly open. It was clear from the strong, warm scent that at some point Dante had attempted to handle this himself by jacking off, and that was weirdly hot. When had he done it, and where? Nero supposed it must have been in that abandoned building next to the not-completely-closed crack; it was really easy to imagine Dante with his back to the wall and his cock in his hand, desperately stroking himself, and that was enough to make Nero kind of hard, too.

With that in his mind, blowing Dante was an absolute pleasure. Nero put his hands on Dante's thighs to brace himself, and sucked as much of the man's cock into his mouth as he could take. Dante sighed, and then again when Nero pulled back and tongued the head of his cock.

"Fuck," said Dante, almost groaning.

His erection tasted salty, and like stale semen ... not the most terrible of flavors, but not the greatest, either. Nero spent the first few minutes licking all of that away. He started with the tip and worked his way down, until he had most of Dante's cock in his mouth and could reach the base with his tongue. Then he moved back up toward the tip, just to be sure all of the sweat and semen were gone. The way Dante _moaned_ as he did this was amazing, just the mindless, animal sound of it; Nero was thoroughly hard by the time he got down to the serious business of trying to get his lover off.

He'd done this for Dante dozens of times by this point, but it never got old. How Dante smelled, how he tasted. The sounds he made, the way he put his fingertips on the back of Nero's neck in implicit threat. One thing Dante never did anymore was take Nero brutally by the hair - it was too risky, too likely to trigger panic - and damned if Nero didn't miss it. He'd liked the pain, and the feeling of being controlled. The feeling of being _subordinate._

Nero pulled back, and the fingers on the back of his neck resisted the motion, the threat becoming manifest. It probably wasn't real, and if Nero tried hard enough to get off of Dante's cock, Dante would almost certainly let him. _Almost_ certainly. That made it real enough to tighten Nero's erection and make him suck harder.

"Damn, kid," Dante whispered. When Nero pushed on his knees he obligingly spread his legs wider, allowing Nero to get right up into his lap to come down on his cock. This put a strain on Nero's back, but Dante's fingers caught a bit of the hair on the back of his neck and the grip told him that he should stay where he was and keep doing what he was doing. That ... was _so hot,_ that signal that Dante was enjoying this and wanted more. Nero's hips started to move, almost out of his control, thrusting at air, and he would have been jacking off himself if he hadn't needed to keep his hands on Dante's legs to maintain his balance.

The strain in his back and shoulders eventually became a kind of pain, but Dante's breathing started to pick up and that went _beyond_ hot. Nero wanted so much to feel Dante come, wanted so badly to know he'd given this powerful devil that much pleasure. He took as much cock into his mouth as he could with each dip downward, then applied suction and tongue on his way back up, the way he knew Dante liked it best. Then a pull on the hair on his neck kept him from going back down, pulling him up instead.

"Lick," Dante whispered. "The tip." When Nero complied, Dante said, "Yes, there, under ..." He started to moan, and the sound made Nero all kinds of crazy, put all kinds of need in him to put Dante over the edge. He moaned himself a bit as he flicked his tongue across the smooth head of Dante's cock, under the ridge, across the slit on the tip, and down the sensitive bridge of skin that connected to Dante's foreskin. He could feel the muscles of Dante's thighs tense under his hands, and he wanted to say, _Yes, yes, yes._

Dante's breathing hitched, became shallow and strained, and then he _moaned_ and jerked his hips upward to shove his cock into Nero's mouth. Nero's next draw pulled in semen, which, as always, was kind of gross but he licked it up anyway just to keep Dante moaning. It turned out, though, that Dante could tolerate very little of that; he said, "Stop," and tugged the hair on Nero's neck, and Nero immediately stopped.

But Nero didn't stop being aroused. He rubbed his cheek on Dante's knee and laid kisses inside Dante's thigh, inhaling the warm scent of sweat and running his lips over the fabric of Dante's pants. The pain in his back and shoulders disappeared with the change of position, and all he could feel now was how incredibly turned on his was. With no thought at all, he opened his own jeans, intending to jack off with Dante's scent in his nose and Dante's taste in his mouth.

"Nero," said Dante, only a minute or so later and long before Nero was ready to come himself.

Nero laid his cheek against Dante's knee, stroking himself, and said, "What?"

"Come here."

Dante pushed Nero's coat off of him as he rose, and then unzipped his hoodie and pulled up his shirt as Nero straddled the older hunter's lap. Nero shed the hoodie, but didn't get his shirt off before Dante began to lick his right nipple, and after that he just kind of forgot about it. It felt _so good,_ the sensation going straight to Nero's cock as surely as though Dante's tongue were there instead.

Then, whispering against his nipple, Dante asked, "How hard is it to give a blow job?"

"Uh, not hard," said Nero. He rested his arms on the back of the chair, over Dante's shoulders. "Keeping my teeth off you is the only challenge." He groaned when Dante gave his nipple a touch of his own teeth. "Yeah, exactly like that, except the opposite."

Dante ran his hands up Nero's back under his shirt, and _fuck_ that felt good, just being touched that way, the warmth and the roughness of Dante's gloves. Nero arched his back, and moaned again when Dante's mouth moved to his other nipple.

"Sit up on the desk," said Dante.

Nero hopped up onto the edge of the desk without a second thought, but it took a few moments for him to figure out what Dante wanted. When he realized that what Dante wanted was him sitting on the edge with his legs spread, he said, "Holy shit, no way."

"You don't want me to?"

Nero flustered a moment. "No, I mean, no way do I believe this."

Dante stood up and leaned across Nero to give him a kiss. "I started wondering today what it's like."

"It's not anything special."

That didn't seem to be an answer Dante expected. "Then why do you do it?"

"Because _you_ like it," said Nero. Obviously.

All confusion cleared away, and Dante smiled. "Maybe you'll like it, too."

This was absolutely unreal. Nero was so hard, and so hot. When Dante had walked in the door, he'd been willing to get the older hunter off but not into it so much himself. That had radically changed in the last fifteen minutes; he could barely handle how turned on he was by this development. Dante pulled his chair closer to the desk until he was between Nero's knees, then leaned down to nose Nero's cock and the dark gray curls visible through his open fly.

"Fucking hell," said Nero, as Dante licked his erection from root to tip. The sight of that was outrageously arousing, far more than the physical sensation of it.

The physical sensation, however, was _really damned good._ It was warm, and wet, and weirdly soft, and Nero gasped aloud when Dante started to take him into his mouth. Just the _heat_ of Dante's mouth probably would have been enough to make him come. Nero put his hands behind him and leaned back, unable to look away from Dante's white hair between his legs, and the motion of Dante's mouth on his cock. That sense of _unreality_ only became stronger when Dante started to suck, and it felt like the suction went all the way down to Nero's balls.

It was hard as hell to just sit there and take it, and _not_ try to fuck Dante in the mouth, or grab him by the hair and force him to move differently. Liquid pleasure began to collect in Nero's groin, seemingly pulled there by every pass of Dante's tongue, and little whining sounds came out of his throat no matter how hard he tried to hold them in. When Dante put hands on his knees and pushed his thighs wider, that _spread open_ feeling changed the whines to panting. It wasn't like being fucked – _nothing_ was like being fucked – but it was still really fucking good and it was absolutely unbelievable that Dante was doing this.

Orgasm hit Nero suddenly; he had a thought to warn Dante, but spluttered too late because the pleasure and tension peaked unexpectedly and scrambled his mind. Then he had to laugh a shaky, unsteady laugh because Dante almost immediately turned to one side and spit onto the floor.

"Holy hell, kid," said Dante, wiping his mouth with one hand and opening one of the desk drawers with the other. "How in the hell do you drink that all the time?" He made a grossed-out sound and wiped his mouth again.

"What, you need instructions?" Since Dante wasn't doing it, Nero put a hand on his erection and gave it a few strokes to drag the last hints of pleasure from his orgasm before his cock started to soften. Damn, it felt good. He groaned a little as the final spasms milked a few more drops of semen onto his fingers.

Dante found what he was looking for, and pulled a handful of tissues out of the box to wipe up the floor and his mouth. "Damn," he said, and then he half-climbed up onto the desk to give Nero another kiss. Second-hand, Nero thought his come tasted essentially like Dante's, and Dante had never minded kissing that out of his own mouth. It must have been the texture, then. The texture _was_ kind of disgusting.

Nero lay back on the desk, his legs hanging off the side and his pants still undone, and let Dante kiss him. Eventually Dante moved down to kissing his neck, and Nero said, "Why'd you do that?"

"Why not? You do it for me."

"Just ..." He couldn't think of a reason that wasn't related to how they were in some kind of devilish hierarchy, which sounded kind of fucked up even in Nero's head. "I hope you're not going to ask me to fuck you next."

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"No." Nero tried to sit up, and Dante let him go so that he could. "No fucking way."

"Why not?" Dante settled with his weight on his hip against the desk. "I was thinking today, you know, after the _second_ time I had to jack off to keep working on that thing, that I kind of want to know what you get out of it."

"No fucking way," said Nero again.

"What?" said Dante. "What's the problem?"

There was no way to say it except to say it, so Nero said it. "If I ever did that, we'd never go back to the other way. I don't _want_ you to know what I get out of it, because you'd want it all the damned time for yourself."

Dante stared at him for a moment, and then started to laugh. Irritated, Nero punched him in the shoulder, but Dante just went with it and laughed more.

"Stop it," Nero told him. "It's not funny."

"Are you _serious?"_ Dante asked, trying to control the laughter and not really succeeding.

Very annoyed now, Nero said, "Yes, I'm serious."

Dante tried to stifle himself by covering his mouth, but was still laughing a little behind his hand. "Damn," he finally managed to say. "Now I _really_ want to know."

"Too bad. I'm not going to contribute to your delinquency." Nero hopped off the desk and wiped off his hand on the bundle of tissues, then tucked himself away so he could zip up his jeans. Dante didn't chase him or try to stop him.

"Can I ask you something, kid?" said Dante. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

Nero snorted. "Like I would if I didn't."

"Was I your first?"

Okay, that was legitimately funny. "Hah. You think _very_ highly of yourself, don't you?"

When he turned around, Dante had also closed up his pants, but otherwise hadn't moved. "Yes, I do, but that's not what I mean," said Dante.

"I know this may be hard for you to believe," said Nero, "but I am apparently quite hot. I had a couple of girlfriends before I joined the Order and yes, two of them actually slept with me."

Dante gave him a delighted smile. "At the same time?"

"No! Although ..." Nero thought about it a bit. "That would have been cool. No, one at a time. So, yeah, I do know what it's like to be on top, and I'm making an informed judgment when I say no fucking way. You're not going to trick me into switching with you."

"It's not a _trick,"_ said Dante, almost laughing again. "I'm not even _asking._ I was just ... speculating. And maybe throwing it out there that if you wanted to, I might not say no."

"The one saying no is me," said Nero. Then he smiled a bit himself. "But if you want to blow me again, I won't say no to that."

"Maybe I will."

"So, you hungry? I made chicken and rice. I can heat it up for you."

"Sure," said Dante. "I'd love that."

That was an absolute lie, and Nero knew it, but it still made him happy that Dante would lie about that for him. He went to get the leftover food out of the fridge and put it in the microwave behind the bar. "I got a very interesting phone call today," he said. "From a demon, who claimed to be ..." He paused when his memory failed him. "What do the rest of you call the demon god, that Sparda defeated?"

"Mundus?"

"Right." Nero straightened when the microwave was running and leaned against the top of the bar. "This demon claimed to be a servant of Mundus, and called to do _me_ a favor."

Nero couldn't have put a name to the emotion that crept across Dante's features, but the man definitely wasn't in a laughing mood anymore. "Really," said Dante.

"It told me all kinds of things about Surgot. I wrote them down." He pointed at the coffee table. "According to a nameless demon who couldn't even be bothered to come by and say it to my face, Surgot wants to kill and replace Mundus, and is terrified of you, so for some bizarre reason it's doing all this stuff to make sure you know it exists and might be dangerous."

Dante crossed the room to the table and picked up the notepad, and looked it over. "Shadows," he said.

"That's what the demon called those things that are following you all the time. Do you know what that means?"

Shaking his head, Dante said, "No idea. I can only guess they're really weak devils but I knew that before." He frowned at the notepad. "What's this mean, guard dog?"

"Hah," said Nero. "You'll love this. That's apparently what Surgot thinks _I_ am. Like, you keep me as a pet to guard your stuff while you're out." Then a sour thought crossed his mind, and he said, "That one's actually a little too close to the truth for my taste."

Dante looked up from the notes immediately. "Hey. This is temporary."

"Right," said Nero, bitter all over again. It was surprising, how quickly it hit him, passing through him like a dry wind and scouring away all hints of his good mood. The microwave dinged, and Nero opened it to stir the rice. "It's temporary like we're temporarily between ice ages."

"What do you want to me to do?" asked Dante.

"There's nothing you _can_ do." Nero set the microwave again and started it. "And there's nothing I can do. Except nothing. Oh, wait. There is something I can do. I can kill a big demon and be mistaken for you in the process, so that Surgot thinks that _you_ have blackout moments during dangerous fights and get cut to pieces in the process."

"... what?" said Dante.

Nero rested against the bar. "That snake thing that came through the wall? Yeah, that was observed. So you're probably being underestimated, because you're being estimated to be me."

"Nero," said Dante quietly. "You saved Patty's life."

"It wasn't after her."

"It would have killed her anyway, and you know it."

"Whatever," said Nero. This conversation was annoying him, and making him think things he didn't want to think and feel things he didn't want to feel, not while Dante was home. He wondered if there was any way to get back to talking about sex, because that, at least, was a safe topic.

"No," said Dante. "Not _whatever._ I want you to look at yourself. You're not at your best right now. You're not even close to your best. But even as fucked up as you are, you did really damned good."

"Don't patronize me," said Nero, anger taking over. That was actually good; Nero preferred anger to despair.

Dante pointed toward the front wall, where the wood paneling hadn't yet been re-installed and the electrical wiring and new brickwork could still be seen around the window casing. "A big-ass devil came at you with no warning," he said. "It cut the hell out of you, and you still put it in the ground, and Patty came out of that without a scratch. And you want to stand there and tell me _whatever?"_ He didn't look angry, just baffled. "Really?"

Nero had no answer to that. When the microwave beeped again, he opened it to check how warm the rice was, and then he took it out and picked up a fork from behind the bar.

"I had some warning," he said, putting the food down on the desk. "I knew something was coming, I just thought it was you. Come eat."

"Shit came at you," said Dante, "and you took care of it. Did you even have your sword out?" He sat down at his desk and set down the notepad so he could pick up the fork. "I bet it was in the case, wasn't it?"

"It was in the case," said Nero, getting angry again. "Can we stop talking about this? There's nothing to say that hasn't been said." Then, to force a subject change, he said, "Exultans stopped by today. It wants out of its collar."

Dante just looked at him a moment, and Nero wasn't sure if the older hunter would accept the switch. If he didn't, Nero wasn't sure what he'd do, but he knew he didn't want to talk about his fucked-up-ness any more.

Eventually, Dante did accept it and said, "I just bet it does." He took a bite of his food.

"It said it works as a supernatural drug counselor."

"... what?"

"It said it's a bond breaker," said Nero. "Do you know what that means?"

"Not a clue." Dante took another bite, and then pointed at the rice with his fork and said, "This is really good."

Nero ignored that; he knew what Dante liked, and it wasn't chicken _or_ rice. "It claims it can get people off drugs, and it has conflicts with drug dealers because of it, so it wants to be able to shapeshift for ... some reason? To kill them I guess."

"Fuck that," said Dante. "So what else did this other devil tell you, the one that said it belongs to Mundus."

"I don't know. What'd I write down?" Nero pulled the notepad across the desk to get it closer, and looked over his notes. "Oh, Mundus is hoping you'll just die of old age without thinking about him again, which seems like a smart tactic to me."

"Huh," said Dante.

"Surgot wants to kill Mundus himself, but is going to have to slaughter a bunch of humans to do it for some reason, and it's afraid you'll come kick its ass. And that's why it decided to send a snake demon, you know, to alert you ahead of time that shit is about to get real." Nero propped himself against the side of the desk and flicked the notepad across it. "That demon who called said it thinks Surgot is being a little irrational where it comes to you. I ... would have to agree. If it's true."

"If it's true," said Dante. He looked up at Nero and set down his fork on the plate. "Do you think it's true?"

Nero had to think about that. He'd been the one to talk to the thing, but he hadn't been able to make a decision immediately afterward and he couldn't now, hours later. "I don't know," he said. "Some of it makes sense, and some of it doesn't. I think I'd believe it more if it weren't for that demon that came by the week before last. So I have to ask myself, why would any demon tell me this story? Even if it is true, what's in it for a demon to tell me this?"

"If Surgot is a danger to Mundus," said Dante, "and if this demon wants to protect Mundus, then siccing me on Surgot is ... I guess one way to do that. But I have to tell you, kid, I have this feeling that if I'm on the same side of something as Mundus, it's time to re-examine my life choices."

While Nero mulled that, Dante picked up his fork and finished the rice. He actually ate it all. Nero wondered if he'd been really hungry, or if he was just being nice.

"The first thing to do," said Dante, as he set the empty plate aside, "is close that fucking crack. I don't suppose your church ever told you anything about that." He stood up and went to the fridge.

"No," said Nero. "They didn't even talk about Mundus much. Didn't even call him by that name. It was always about Sparda, and how Sparda wanted us to live our lives, and what Sparda would have wanted us to do to prepare for another invasion."

Dante walked back to the desk with two cans of beer, and put one in front of Nero. "And what was that?"

Nero shrugged and opened his beer. "Learn how to fight, mostly," he said. "Lots of prayers. Of course, _now_ I know that their plan involved turning themselves into demons, but that wasn't part of the catechism." He took a sip. "The odd demon would show up on Fortuna every couple of years, but they weren't very strong ones and the Order always took care of them. It made us believe that we could actually defend ourselves so long as we followed Sparda's teachings."

"Nothing about opening or closing gates, then," said Dante, cracking open his own can and seating himself.

"Not in the catechism," said Nero. "But, you know, there were a few things in the Order's notes when I went through them. It was nothing I could replicate, and I don't remember the details." This was an interesting new line of thought. "I bet the records are still where I left them. Do you want me to go get them?"

That made Dante glance up at him. "Do you want to?"

It was on the tip of Nero's tongue to glibly claim that of course he wouldn't mind, but he caught himself before he could say it. There was a reason he was the office receptionist right now. He covered his sudden reluctance by downing a few swallows of beer.

When he hesitated, Dante said, "You don't have to. I can go."

"I want to," said Nero. He drank the rest of the beer and tossed the can into the trash. "I want to get out and _do_ something. I just don't know if it would be safe."

Dante tried to take his hand, but Nero pulled out of reach and moved back. Dante sighed, and said, "It's up to you. I can't decide for you."

It would probably be a boring trip. Nero would leave in the middle of the day, just in case that devil had told him the truth and he really could evade demonic surveillance that way. More likely than not, no demons would follow him. It would be two days' drive down the coast to reach Fortuna's sister port, and he could sleep in the car if he really wanted to avoid interacting with any humans. It would probably take a day or so to go through the castle and remember where he'd found everything before, but the castle had only been used for high holidays before he'd left and he doubted much would have changed in the year he'd been gone. Probably nobody would bother him.

Was this something he could risk? There wouldn't be much risk. Would there?

"I can do it," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. If I leave tomorrow, I can probably be back before this time next week." Yes, this would be doable. Nero would just stay clear of humans as much as he could, and be careful if he ran into any devils. Despite his black mood earlier, Dante had been right: he _had_ taken down that big snake thing, even though he'd had a panic attack in the middle of it. Didn't that prove that, even if he couldn't be trusted to take care of someone else, he could at least take care of himself?

Yes. The more he settled into the idea, the more sure he was. He could do this. "I can do this," he said.

"I know you can," said Dante, with a smile.

* * *

Late the following morning, while Dante was in the shower, Nero went into the back room where Dante kept all the devil arms.

Yamato occupied a central place on the rear wall, sheathed and hanging from an improvised mounting of steel hooks screwed into the drywall. There was dust on the shelving back here, but none on any of the devil arms; Dante never dusted or cleaned anything, but the weapons just somehow never needed it.

As Nero stood there, a soft whisper feathered through the musty air. He didn't answer it. There was no need.

Fifteen minutes later, Dante poked his head through the open door, and then walked into the room. "Going to take it with you?" he asked.

Nero looked down at his right hand. He still had Nevan. "I don't know," he said.

Dante said nothing more, and after a few moments he left the room again. Nero appreciated that. This was another decision he had to make by himself.

He did want it. Yamato ordinarily lay quiet within his devil bringer, so quiet that Nero had often forgotten it was there until he had need for the sword's power. He felt no different today than he had day-to-day with Yamato in his possession. When he did have need for the power, though, it thundered through his blood and sang down his nerves, like a stroke of lightning within his body. It made him feel like he could fly. It made him feel like he could sunder the world.

He wanted that. He hadn't had that for almost half a year, and while he didn't normally miss it, that was because he didn't normally think about it. He was thinking about it now, and the memory of it was vivid and powerful. He wanted it. And, above that, he might actually need it.

"I know what you think," he told the sword. "So don't say it." The air remained still.

Probably nobody would bother him, but if someone did, Nero needed to be able to deal with them safely. Most of the things that set off his flashbacks were violent, and unlikely to be triggered by an ordinary human, but a few of them were not, and Nero couldn't even be sure that he knew what all of them were. Even now, there might be more he hadn't run into yet. It had taken months for the first ones to show up, after all.

Yamato was too dangerous, and Nero was too dangerous with it in his possession. He still had Nevan. He turned around and left the weapon room, and closed the door behind him.

Dante was at his desk with a magazine, and he gave Nero a questioning look but did not ask.

Nero said, "That demon told me the shadows can't operate when the sun is up."

"That actually makes sense," said Dante.

"I don't know what they'll think about your guard dog disappearing."

"For some strange reason, I find that I don't care." Then Dante put the magazine down, and said, "I don't suppose Exultans told you when it planned to come back here."

"It isn't coming back. I told it you'd go to it if you decided to let it out. It says it has a place south of Broadway, near Thirty-first."

"Hmmm," said Dante. He flipped the edge of the magazine with his finger.

Nero had already packed some clothes in his duffel, and he picked it up along with his keys. "Want me to call you when I get to Fortuna?"

"If you don't mind."

"I don't mind." Nero slung the duffel over his shoulder and picked up Red Queen. "See you in a week."

"Drive carefully," said Dante.

That made Nero laugh. "Are you channeling my mother?"

"No," said Dante. "I'm channeling mine."

Outside, Nero tossed the duffel and the sword into the back seat of his car, got in, and put the keys in the ignition but then had to sit a moment while he wondered if this was actually a good idea. Dante would go instead if Nero backed out. Dante would come with him, if Nero went back into the building and asked.

"No," said Nero to himself. "I can do this." He started the car. He could do this. He _had_ to be able to do this. He was going to go crazy if he didn't do something constructive, and this was something he could do.

He already felt better by the time he reached the interstate.


	4. Chapter 4

A few minutes after Nero left, Dante went to the back of the building to check if the kid had taken Yamato.

Nope. There it was, untouched, where Dante had left it. "Damn."

Nero had sort of explained his hang-up about Yamato, insofar as he ever explained anything about what was going on in his head, but Dante didn't really _get_ it. The katana was a powerful weapon, at least equal to Rebellion, but nevertheless just a weapon. It wasn't to blame for that incident in February, and wouldn't have been even if the kid had actually killed a human being instead of a devil trying to fuck with his head. Dante just couldn't grasp why Nero felt it so necessary to cripple himself by leaving the sword in storage.

After a moment, Dante took Yamato down off the wall and drew the sword. He could feel the power in it, but it didn't have the same kind of _sing_ as Rebellion. Even the other, lesser devil arms in this room, ones that Dante rarely used, felt more natural than this one. The blade was useable, and Dante had used it often when he and Vergil had been kids and would swap weapons, playing at being mighty generals of the demon world. He could take it out right now, and it would cut things in half precisely the way it was designed to do.

But Yamato had never _yielded_ to Dante the way his other weapons did. It was useable and its power was useable, but it felt begrudging. In Dante's hand, Yamato always held something back.

Dante turned the sword to make the blade catch the light, just to see the colors it reflected from beyond the barrier, and then sheathed it. He couldn't make Nero take it, and it wouldn't have been right to try. He hung the sword back on the wall, and closed the weapon room door behind him.

* * *

As soon as he walked in the tattoo studio door, Dante knew he'd found his demon. And there was Exultans, jumping up out of a chair in the corner next to the nearest tattoo station. "Dante!" it said, and Dante couldn't tell if the thing was excited to see him or frightened.

There were three other people in the place, a woman and two men, all fully human. The men were loitering at a counter set near the rear of the room, and the woman was seated on a stool at one of the tattoo stations.

She stood up and asked, "Can I help you?" She didn't even come up to Dante's collarbone and was slender enough to pick up with one hand, but the muscles on her bared and tattooed arms were strong and wiry, and she was clearly prepared to take no shit off anyone.

Best to be polite, then. "No, thank you," said Dante. "I have a little business with your ... friend, here. Or whatever it is to you."

She looked between them, and looked a bit skeptical but just nodded. Exultans gestured toward the door. "We'll go talk out here," it said.

Once they were on the sidewalk, its tone turned into an ingratiating whine. "Are you going to take this chain off?" it asked.

"I don't know yet," said Dante. He nodded back toward the door. "What were you doing in there?"

It smelled atrocious outside the building, of stale alcohol, rotting trash, urine, and old vomit. This was an older part of town, ramshackle and not at all trendy, so it was still ignored by redevelopers and others with money. Two- and three-story buildings were crammed together and subdivided into tiny apartments or illegal brothels, with liquor stores and pawn shops occupying the ground floors. The dark and narrow street was almost deserted, with only the occasional car going by on the way to somewhere else, and Dante could hear the soft breathing of an unconscious human in the alley next to the studio. The tattoo studio was the cleanest and most well-kept place along the block.

This was prime devil hunting ground, actually, full of people that society had discarded and would not protect.

"Deb and Tom give me some space," said Exultans. "I'm a bond-breaker. Tom was bound to coke and I unhooked him, and they look out for me now. I'm usually there, waiting for people to come in and ask for me."

"I thought Nero said you worked with addicts or something."

"Well, yeah. Not all of us can afford a big fancy storefront with a neon sign." When Dante just looked at the thing, Exultans said, "Don't judge. I think I'm doing pretty well for myself. I came here twelve years ago with absolutely nothing. I didn't even speak the language. I had to mug a guy to get clothes so I could pass for human. You don't have a right to judge me just because I work out of someone else's place."

Dante felt he had a right to judge anything and everything about this devil, but there were more important things on his mind at the moment than the creature's lifestyle. "Yeah," he said. "About that. What exactly are you doing to these addicts?"

The devil turned to put its back to the wall next to the tattoo studio door. "I told you, I'm a bond-breaker. It's not that different from breaking bonds back home. I didn't think it would be useful here, but damn, is it ever. The principle is the same, and I've gotten pretty good at it. I don't have a lot of relapses anymore."

"Okay," said Dante, "but what are you _doing_ to these people?"

The creature's gaze flicked to his face, suddenly wary. "Breaking their bonds," it said cautiously. "I thought I said that?"

_Don't put it through the wall,_ Dante told himself, although he was finding it difficult to remember why the hadn't just decapitated this thing the moment he'd found it. Something of that must have shown on his face, because the devil stood up straight and moved a few steps away from him. "I don't understand what you're asking!" it said. "I don't! I mean ... are you asking me to teach you how to do it?"

"I just want to know _what you're doing,"_ said Dante, very slowly, his irritation coloring the words. "What are you _doing_ to these poor drug addicts?"

"I don't ... oh. Oh." It giggled nervously. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't think ... you were _born_ here, weren't you?"

"Are you seriously going to make me beat this out of you?" Dante asked.

"No, no, no!" said Exultans. "No, no." It raised its hands defensively. "No need for that. Heh heh ..." The neurotic laughter died when it cleared its throat. "The bonds these humans have, it's not that different from how you make a pet, or how the lords imprint their creations. The bond is in the head. It's changes in the brain. I just change it back to the way it ought to be." It laughed again, even more nervously this time, and backed away another pace. "I swear, Dante, on my life, that I didn't touch your pet yesterday. I would _never_ do that!"

"What pet?" asked Dante, but he figured it out a moment later. "You idiot. Nero's not a pet."

"... okay." The demon smiled a wary smile, hands still raised. "Whatever you say. I don't know how that works, but okay."

"If you said that to his face," said Dante, "I'm surprised he didn't take your head off. How did you learn how to do this? This bond-breaking thing?"

"Um," said Exultans. "Well ... it's really in-demand back home. Although you have to be careful that the lords don't find out. They don't like it when you give their creations free will. I found someone who knew how to do it, and she taught me. The first bond I broke was my own."

"Huh." Dante wasn't sure what to think about this.

"I actually really like it here," said the devil. "I was scared to come through, because I didn't know what it would be like, but it's nice. I don't have to hide that I have a mind of my own here." It touched the chain. "Come on, Dante. _Please_ let me out of this. This is literally the only useful skill I have. If I can't shapeshift, I'll have to move to the other side of town and live in the street."

Before Dante could answer, Exultans glanced up and behind Dante with an alarmed look. Dante turned, to see three men crossing the street to approach them. Like the ones in the studio, they were tattooed and pierced, and looked annoyed.

"No, no, guys," said Exultans. "It's fine, it's fine!"

"This guy bothering you, Brian?" one of them asked the devil.

"No," said the demon. "Nobody's bothering me." It laughed, weakly. "We're just, uh ... having a chat. This is a friend of mine! His name is Dante!" It moved closer to Dante, as though about to grab his arm, but immediately thought better of it when Dante gave it a warning look. "It's fine, guys! Really! Um, please don't pick a fight with him."

It was plain to Dante that these men were only human, but he wondered if they were charmed. They looked quite hostile for a few moments, until the devil again assured them that everything was on the up-and-up here. Then one of them moved toward the studio door and the other two eventually followed. The last one to enter continued to glare at Dante until the door closed behind him.

Dante said, "I don't know how you have problems with drug dealers, when just standing here talking to you gets me threatened."

Exultans moved away from him again, putting distance between them. "I try to keep the humans out of it. They're kind of fragile, you know? And it's such a hassle when they get killed. I depend on them for referrals. And I'm not _usually_ in any danger from the dealers because _usually_ I can shapeshift."

"A hassle," said Dante, appalled but not especially surprised. That was all there was to human death, apparently: a hassle.

"Yeah," said Exultans. "I can't charm them, either, because I need them to send business my way and they don't do it right under a charm. They start referring _everyone,_ not just the addicts."

This demon had taken zero steps toward developing a full emotional range. On some level Dante had expected that; on another level, it was profoundly disappointing. The creature claimed it had been amongst humans for more than a decade, interacting with them probably every day, but it still thought of humans only in terms of its own interests. "So what do you do with the dealers?" asked Dante, disgust leaking into his tone. "Kill them?"

"Oh, no, no, no," said the devil, with another of those nervous laughs. "I think you'd notice that! I ... might set them up with the cops? I charm them and have them offer to sell some cop or other a hit. That takes care of them for a while. But I can't charm them without shapeshifting!"

Dante frowned and took an angry step toward the thing, making it retreat to keep its distance. "What do you take me for?" he demanded. "Do you think you're the first devil I've ever encountered?"

"No," said Exultans, and it again retreated when Dante took another step, so Dante pulled a gun and took aim at the thing's head. Its eyes widened and it stopped where it was, raising its hands. "What?" it said. "What'd I say?"

"Devils lay charms every damned day without having to change back into their natural forms," said Dante. "If you're going to lie to me, we're done here."

"I'm not lying!" said the devil. Its gaze flicked to each side, as though searching for an escape, but there was nothing close enough for it to reach and it seemed to realize that. "I swear, I need to shapeshift to work a charm."

"That's bullshit," said Dante, and he put the Ivory's barrel to the creature's head. It was trembling; he could feel it through the gun.

The devil swallowed hard, making the chain around its throat move up and down. "I'm not lying," it said. "I'm a bond-breaker, and a charm is a kind of bond. It takes a lot of effort for me to make one, because I'm better equipped to destroy them. I swear to you, Dante. That's the truth."

Dante didn't believe it. This went against everything he knew about devils, and he just didn't believe it. Killing this thing right now would be the safest option for the humans around this area.

But would it be the best one? If this demon was telling the truth about how it made a living, there was something weirdly elegant about the arrangement. Despite being a complete sociopath, in the pursuit of its own selfish goals this demon was doing good work for this neighborhood.

_If_ this was true. Dante lowered Ivory and holstered it, and, while the devil tried to catch its breath, he went back into the tattoo studio without another word.

One of the men who had come in while Dante and Exultans had been talking was seated in a chair, with one of the studio workers laying out tattoo equipment next to him. The others were kicked back next to the side counter, and the woman was now with them.

"Which one of you is Tom?" Dante asked.

"I am," said the tattooist. "Why?"

Dante gave him a smile. "Would you mind telling me a little bit about ... Brian?"

"What do you want to know?"

"What exactly did he do to you?"

The man in the chair had an incomplete tattoo on his left arm, some kind of bird of prey, like a falcon. "I was in a bad place," said Tom. "Brian got me out of it."

"Yeah," said Dante, "but what was it _like?"_

The door to the studio opened, and Dante didn't even have to look to know that the devil had come back inside. Tom opened a package with a needle in it, and then fit the needle to a tattoo machine. "It was weird," he said quietly, "to suddenly not need the coke anymore. I'd gotten used to always needing it, and then poof. Suddenly I didn't." He glanced up. "If you're scared, man, don't be. It doesn't hurt or anything."

It took a moment for Dante to parse that, and then he laughed. "Yeah, not scared," he said. "Just looking for information. What goes into it?"

Tom continued setting up his equipment, putting a dab of ink into a small cup, testing the tattoo machine, cleaning the skin over the lines already inked onto the man's arm. "I don't know how to describe it," he said eventually. "Brian has some kind of gift. He has to touch you, and sometimes if you're in really deep he'll have to cut your arm a little and touch your blood. And it takes some time, like, hours sometimes. I had the weirdest thoughts, and I was tasting colors and shit, like they say you do when you do acid. But at the end it was all gone, all the craving, and it hasn't come back."

Dante glanced toward the devil, and it shrugged innocently at him. "I see."

"Whatever you're on," said Tom, "Brian can get you off of it. You may need to do detox for withdrawal if you're using something like heroin, but you won't need it anymore when that's over."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Dante, and Tom began to work on the falcon tattoo.

What should he make of this? This was certainly consistent with the story Exultans was telling ... but it was also consistent with humans under a light charm. There were other possibilities as well; there were many demonic abilities that Dante had seen only once and did not understand, and he was sure there were many more that he had never seen. He wasn't sure what to believe.

"I need to think about this," he told the devil. "I might be back in a week or two." He'd see then what kind of opinion these humans had toward the devil in their midst. If Exultans were lying, it would probably be unable to resist the urge to lay a heavy charm onto these people to make them more effective character witnesses. Devils had very little self-control, after all.

"Come on, Dante," the demon whined. "What if something happens between now and then?"

Dante smiled and patted it on the shoulder. "You're obviously a resourceful creature," he said. "You'll figure something out."

He went back to his motorcycle to return home, and frowned when he glanced at the fuel gauge. He was almost out of gas again. Damn. He only had ten bucks; if he filled the tank, he'd have nothing left for pizza later. The demon had already annoyed him, and he spent a few moments being even more irritated at this development.

Being in debt again really sucked. He wished he'd been home when that snake devil had busted the wall, because he wanted to pound the shit out of it right now.

He ended up stopping for gas, because getting stranded would be worse than missing a meal, and there was a nonzero possibility that Nero had left some food in the fridge that he hadn't mentioned before leaving. That turned out to be a wise decision, because when Dante got home, Lady's car was parked out front.

She was standing at the pool table chalking a cue when he walked in, her pistol on the rail. "Look what the cat dragged in," she said.

"I am dead broke," said Dante. "I don't even have money for dinner." He walked to his desk to set down his guns.

Lady frowned. "What were you out doing?"

"Roughing up a demon for fun." Then something occurred to him. "Damn, I bet that thing has some money. Maybe I should _sell_ the key to it."

"What are you talking about?"

"I put a collar on a demon instead of killing it," said Dante, "because it claimed to be all innocent and terrified of me, and it gave me a hard-on. Now it wants me to take the collar off. I bet I can make it pay me for that."

She laughed. "You're fucked up, Dante."

He smiled at her. "That's why you love me."

"I brought something for you." She pulled a piece of folded paper out of her front pocket and held it out. "It's out on the east side. Sounds like it might be an entire nest."

"Pain in the ass," said Dante, but he could hardly refuse, not now. He took it from her and unfolded it.

"I'd suggest you give it to Nero," said Lady, "except that apparently he's mooching right now?"

Dante had hoped she'd forgotten about that. "He's been taking it easy lately. He was doing all the work that came in and was starting to burn out, so he's only been doing the easy ones the past couple of weeks."

"Dante," said Lady, and he knew she wasn't buying it. "Don't lie to me."

The paper looked like the notes Lady had taken from whomever had called her with the job. There were phrases in there like "little rat things" and "huge teeth" alongside the contact information. "Don't go there," Dante said. "Please. Leave it alone."

"Is he okay, at least?"

"It's complicated, and it's not my story to tell you. If he wants you to know, he'll tell you himself. Just let it go, and don't bring it up when you see him." He flipped the paper around to show her the notes she'd written on it. "Little rat things? Really?"

"The rat things are apparently minions of some kind," said Lady. "Expect to see something bigger than rats. It'll be okay money and probably won't take long. See how nice I am to you?"

Dante slipped the paper into his coat. "If you really want to be nice to me," he said, "you'll buy me dinner."

Again, she laughed. "What is the point of me asking you to pay me back if I spend all the money you give me _on you?"_

"Well," said Dante, moving right up close to her and kind of leaning down so that he didn't tower over her quite so much. "If I _starve,_ and become weak, some little rat thing is going to take me down and eat me, and then you'll _never_ get your money back. Look at it like an investment. In me."

"You're not going to starve," she said, but she was smiling and Dante knew he had her. She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, then over his lips, and he kissed her fingers.

This close to her, he had a clear sense of the devil growing inside her. The bigger her belly got, the more evident it became that there was something otherworldly about her. It was a bizarre thing, because Lady was so familiar to him ... he knew the rhythm of her heart and her breath, and at this distance he should have been able to touch the edges of her soul. She instead came across as more demonic than human.

He raised a hand, and paused with his palm above her abdomen. "Do you mind?"

"Go ahead."

She was wearing a stretchy, T-shirt-like thing, and her belly was warm beneath it. He couldn't feel the baby move this time, and he wondered if it knew he was here, the same as he knew it was in there. If it did, did it think of him - to whatever degree a developing devil could think - as a threat? "Are you still getting kicked in the kidneys?" he asked.

"Not so much," she said. "I get kicked in the bladder instead." When he laughed, she slapped his hand. "You wouldn't think it was funny if it was _your_ bladder."

There was a marvel here, that nature could turn an evening of passion into a new life in this way. All of Dante's ambivalence about this little adventure was gone; he wanted this baby to be born, so that he could hold it. He wondered how a child of his would breathe, what kind of rhythm its heart would play. How it would smell. He leaned closer to Lady, his hand on her belly. Her scent was strange now, still distinctly Lady, yet faintly and indefinably devil as well. She smelled damned good.

Lady misinterpreted his closeness, and began to kiss the side of his neck. "Nero's out?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Dante. "He probably won't be back until next week." He pulled away an inch. "I'm sorry, Lady. Not today."

She did accept that, and leaned back as well, but a moment later she said, "Give me an honest answer. Am I _that_ unattractive right now?"

_Damn._ Dante didn't know what to say to that. This had been a while in coming, but he hadn't been looking forward to it. How little could he get away with? "No," he said eventually. "That's not it."

"It's always you're tired, or you're busy," said Lady. "Or just not right now. And you never call _me_ anymore."

"I know," he said.

"If it kills your boner to look at me, that's fine. I'd just like to know."

"That's not it," said Dante again. "That's another of those complicated things."

"What's complicated about it?" Lady drew back to put a little distance between them, and looked up at him. "I've missed you lately, but if watching me bloat like a puffer fish doesn't turn you on, just say so."

That would have been a great excuse, especially since Lady had just handed it to him. All Dante had to do was take it. After the baby was born, he could just continue the excuse and say that something about her had changed, and he no longer found her attractive.

When he again hesitated, she said, "I'm not going to be upset. Do I smell different or something?" She raised an arm and sniffed her wrist. "I can't tell."

"You smell great," said Dante.

"Then what is it?"

He really had no plan for this. All he really knew was that the truth was not an option; Nero had never actually _told_ Dante not to tell anyone they were sleeping together, but Dante nevertheless knew it wouldn't make the kid happy if he did. It probably would have helped if Dante had actually put some thought into what he was going to tell Lady when she finally noticed that he was no longer willing to have sex with her. "Please don't ask me to explain it," he said.

_"What?"_ said Lady incredulously. "Don't ask you to explain _what?"_

"Lady ..."

"It's not going to upset me!" she said. "I swear, you can _tell me._ I wouldn't ask you if I was going to bite your head off for giving me a straight answer." When he remained silent, unable to figure out what to say, she sighed. "Why are you so secretive all of a sudden? Does this have something to do with Nero?"

_That_ came as a shock, and Dante spluttered. _"What?"_ he finally managed. "Why would it have anything to do with _Nero?"_

"You never kept secrets from me before."

"That you know of." Dante tried to cover for his momentary lack of balance by flattening his tone. Lady really didn't seem upset, just confused. He didn't blame her. But he did need to divert her. "It's not my place to tell you what's going on with Nero, but it's been going on for a while."

"Since February, apparently," said Lady.

"Yeah, and you didn't know about it until that demon cut him up and made him stupid. I don't tell you everything. Please trust me that I have good reasons for that."

She looked at him with a skeptical little half-smile, and he knew she wasn't buying the diversion. "Okay," she said. "Whatever is up with Nero is none of my business. You're right. I asked because I care about him, but you're right. You're telling me that the reason you don't want to sleep with me anymore is _also_ none of my business. You're saying that these two things are equivalent in some way. How are they equivalent?"

Dante had no idea where to go now. "I don't know what to tell you," he said.

"If I'm just not attractive anymore, that's fine," said Lady. She shifted her weight, and then walked over to Dante's desk and settled herself in his chair. "I think that's where we started, actually. I'm not trying to pressure you into anything, although I have to admit I've _really_ missed you lately." Her skeptical smile softened as she looked him over, and it brought to Dante's mind the smeared-together memories of so many evenings and nights and mornings and afternoons in Lady's bed. "Why is this even a secret?"

The plaintive tone broke Dante's heart a little, and made him wonder if he _really_ had to turn her down today. Nero was gone and wouldn't be back for days. He didn't have to know. It had been forever, it seemed, since Dante had been close to someone without that urge to do violence getting in the way, and he could imagine the taste of Lady's mouth and the feel of her skin. He could imagine going to sleep beside her and being able to just _rest._

Dante should have just used the lie Lady had offered, but it was too late now. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm being a dick, aren't I?"

"I don't understand why this is a secret," said Lady. She tilted the chair back a bit. "I don't understand how it's none of my business."

A version of the truth, Dante decided, was probably for the best. He owed her more than an unspoken mystery. They'd never committed to one other, and both had wandered many times over the years with no resentment, so this wouldn't be out of the blue or anything. "I ... kind of started seeing someone."

"... okay," she said. "Why the big secret?"

"I wasn't sure how you'd react. And ... the person I'm seeing doesn't really want me talking about it."

Lady's mouth crooked back into that half-smile. "Why didn't you just _say_ that?" she asked.

"Because I didn't know how you'd react!"

"I just don't understand you sometimes, Dante." Lady was literally shaking her head at him. "Have I _ever_ had a problem with you sleeping with other women? If that's all it is, you just had to say so."

"I'm sorry," said Dante, and he was. He should have had this conversation with her weeks ago, in more controlled circumstances, with a fucking _plan_ for what to say to her and how to say it.

"You're an idiot, is what you are." She picked up the phone and held it out to him. "Call for pizza. I'll pay for it."

Dante put some music on the jukebox, and he and Lady shot a couple games of pool while waiting for the pizza. She wasn't as good at it as Nero, but she was way better than any human had a right to be, and the games went quickly, ball after ball going straight into the pockets. Dante barely had to let her win.

Around five in the afternoon and after all the pizza was gone, Dante said, "You might want to head out soon."

"I don't have anywhere to be," said Lady. "You anxious to get to those little rat things?"

"No," said Dante, "but you should leave while the sun is still up. I don't think I told you this yet, but some devil is watching me, and its spies can't handle bright daylight."

She frowned at him. "No," she said slowly. "You hadn't mentioned that yet. I assume this is dangerous?"

"Actually, I don't know," said Dante. "The demon is named Surgot. I've never heard of it before."

"I haven't either," said Lady.

"We don't know why it's watching me, but apparently it's high up in the hierarchy of hell and it wants to climb even higher, so I doubt this is a benevolent surveillance."

Lady was silent for quite some time, long enough for Dante to wonder what was up. "What is it?" he asked.

"This is important information that I think I should know," she said, tapping her fingernail on the rail. "When were you planning to tell me this?"

Oh, shit. It was only then that Dante realized he had fucked up. He _should_ have told her. He hadn't intended to keep this to himself, but it just hadn't crossed his mind that this was something he should have told Lady immediately. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know you were coming over."

"You didn't know I _wasn't_ coming over, either," said Lady, her voice hard. "You didn't call me and tell me to stay away from you for a while. How much danger do you think I put this baby in by coming here today?"

"Lady ..." Dante began, but she interrupted with an angry gesture at her swollen belly.

"This is a serious question, Dante. How dangerous was this visit today? What should I be expecting?"

Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ Dante really should have told her before now; she was completely right. "I honestly have no idea," he said. "I don't know what's going on."

"You have no idea," she repeated, incredulously. "You have no idea about the extent of the threat, and you let me walk into it."

"I'm sorry," he said.

Lady slammed the pool cue down on the table. "Stop being sorry," she said. "You just didn't even think about this, did you? Is this related to that demon that attacked Nero?"

"Well ..." Dante winced. "Yes?"

"I can't _believe_ you," she said.

"I'm sorry!" said Dante again. "I really am. We really just got most of what we know about it yesterday."

"And you couldn't have called me yesterday," said Lady.

"I can't go back in time and do it. I should have. I know that. I'm sorry and ... all I can be is sorry."

She looked at him for a long minute or so, and then turned around to pull the pool balls out of the pockets and back onto the table. "Okay," she said. "Tell me about this demon."

That wasn't the end of it, and Dante could tell by the tension of her mouth that Lady was still angry. "Surgot is apparently very big in the demon world right now," he said. "It wants to kill Mundus. I don't even know if that's possible. I'd think if it were, Dad would have done it."

"And it's following you why?"

"Not a clue. Some demon called Nero yesterday and said Surgot is a little out of its mind, but I don't know that we should take what a demon says at face value." Dante went over to his desk and sat down, and gave Ivory a flick to watch it spin on the desktop. "Surgot isn't following me directly, but has apparently sent something called its _shadows._ Don't ask me what that means. I think they're very weak demons. Very ... faint, you might say. I don't _think_ they're always there, but to be honest I can't be sure. We do know there's more than one, because there was one on me and one on Nero a couple of days ago."

"Where _is_ Nero?" asked Lady. She racked the balls, but then just leaned against the pool table with the cue in her hand.

"He went to Fortuna. There's this crack to the demon world north of the old city, that I can't close. He thought there might be something in the Order's notes about how they opened and closed hellgates, and maybe that will help us." Dante wiped his hand over his face. "This whole thing is kind of fucked up, and you're right, I just didn't think about you. I should have. I'm sorry."

"I'm not as limber as I was six months ago," said Lady. "It would have been nice to know that I should start carrying something bigger than a nine-millimeter."

"I know."

She still didn't look happy, but Dante didn't expect her to be, and at least her fury seemed to be gone. She picked up her gun from the table rail and holstered it, and then turned back to him. "Dante," she said. "How obvious is it to you that I'm pregnant with a devil?"

"From here, not much." From across the room, Lady looked like an ordinary pregnant human, and Dante couldn't smell her at all. "From three feet in front of you ... it's pretty obvious. It's getting more so every time I see you."

"When do you think it will be obvious from twenty feet away?"

"I don't know. Before the baby is born, I'd guess."

Lady ran a hand over her swollen belly. "From now on, I'll call you instead of coming by. And _you_ call _me_ when you know something."

"I promise." Dante laid a hand over his heart. "You will be the first one to know."

"Don't be flippant," said Lady. "You're not stupid. Don't act like you're stupid." Then her mouth softened a little, and she added, "Tell Nero hi for me when you see him."

"I will," said Dante.

* * *

Dante left to take care of Lady's job after dark, specifically to give his follower an opportunity to follow him. He took his motorcycle and got onto the beltway to swing around to the east side, because that let him get up quite a bit of speed. Would his shadow be able to keep up? That was an important question, and Dante wanted an answer.

The address Lady had given to him was deep in a suburban residential neighborhood, the kind where it was easy to get lost among the many roads with gentle curves and similar names. Dante found his way to the neighborhood easily enough, but then had to wander for quite some time before he found the correct street. It wasn't a new subdivision - the trees were tall and mature - but the landscaping was trim and well-groomed, with flowers planted around the bases of the signs and lampposts.

Nothing set apart the house that was his destination from the ones around it. The porch light was on, but so were several others on the same street, and there was nothing uncanny about the yard or the house itself. No little rat things to be seen, and no demon spoor anywhere. Dante parked his bike in the driveway behind the two cars already there and went up to the door.

It opened before he got there, and a woman stepped into the doorway. "Hi," she said. "Are you the devil hunter?"

"Are you the one with the little rat things?" asked Dante.

She smiled. "It's not me," she said. "Do you want to come in?"

Inside the house were four other people, two more women and two men. This, he soon learned, was the board of the neighborhood homeowners association. The woman who had answered the door, Betsy Kelly, was the chair of the board. The neighborhood had a clubhouse, and things that they thought were devils had taken it over.

"What makes you so sure the rat things aren't, y'know, rats?" asked Dante.

"We called an exterminator," said the older of the two men. He kept looking at the sword over Dante's shoulder, with an expression that spoke more of revulsion than interest. "They aren't rats."

"How much do you charge?" asked the chair.

"I'll have to look at it first," said Dante. "Where is the clubhouse?"

He would have been happy if they'd just pointed him the right direction, but all five of them wanted to come with him. That was fine. They seemed relatively sensible and Dante thought it should be easy to keep them out of danger. The clubhouse was just down the road, and although Betsy Kelly offered to drive him, it was almost faster to walk there.

The things in the building weren't rats. One of the other women unlocked and opened the front door of the clubhouse to let them inside, and Dante could hear things scurrying around the walls, things he knew immediately were demonic. The lights in the lobby didn't work, which made it probably too dark for the humans to see much, but that was all right. Something small and black crawled up the wall, and its eyes glinted red when it looked his way.

_"Dante,"_ whispered the still air, and the small demon scurried away.

Dante drew his guns, and all of the board members stepped back. "Where'd this problem start?" he asked.

"The pool room," said Betsy. She pointed toward the rear of the lobby. "Through there."

"It's everywhere now, though," said one of the other women. "All through the building."

"Maybe you should wait outside," said Dante, and they didn't argue with him.

Once they were out of the building, Dante walked toward the pool room. "Were you expecting me?" he asked.

The air seemed to tremble. _"We knew it was only a matter of time."_

"So you know what comes next." Dante gently eased open the door at the rear of the lobby. It led directly to the pool room.

_"Yes. Do you?"_

The skylights let in a bit of light, enough for him to see that something was wrong with the water. Something was swirling in there, like smoke within the pool. Dante couldn't discern more than that in the darkness, but the reek of demon was strong in here. More of those small devils were here, crawling into and out of the water, and up and down the walls.

_"Yes,"_ said the voice again, and now Dante could tell that the walls themselves were vibrating to produce it. _"You see that it is already too late. You are too late, Dante. We are far beyond your power already. We are beyond this place, and beyond you. Leave these humans to their fates."_

Lady had been completely wrong about these little devils, Dante realized. These weren't minions, and this wasn't going to be a quick and easy job. Dante backed out of the pool room, moving warily in case the devils tried to stop him, but they didn't. They let him go out to the lobby and let him exit the building with no more than a whispering laugh.

Outside the building, he herded the board members out to the street before he spoke with them. "You have a serious problem," he told them. "This has spread beyond this building." He pointed to the nearest homes, less than a hundred feet away from the clubhouse. "I wouldn't be surprised if all of those houses were infested by these things."

"What are they?" asked the younger of the two men.

"They're devils," said Dante, as though it were obvious, because it was obvious.

"Yes," said the man. "But what kind are they?"

"The kind that spread like a disease," said Dante. "You people are going to need to tell me what kind of budget you have, because this is going to take a while."

They glanced at one another, and it was Betsy Kelly who spoke. "The association has authorized us to spend up to five thousand dollars," she said.

At least Lady had been right about part of it; this would be good money. "Cash in advance," said Dante.

"We can write you a check ..." began the chair.

Dante interrupted. "Cash only, in advance."

"That's ..."

The older man cut her off. "We should get a contract. How do we even know he can take care of these things?"

"I can take care of them," said Dante. "I can kill the main nest in the clubhouse without too much trouble, but they've already spread. I don't know where to. It's going to take some time to dig them all out, which is why five grand sounds about right. If I spend a week going through your neighborhood, that's a week I'm _not_ doing other things."

"A week?" said one of the women, like that was something she literally could not believe.

"That's the roughest of estimates," said Dante.

Behind him, the clubhouse seemed to breathe once, out and then in again, and the five board members visibly startled, staring back at the building. "I don't think they're dangerous yet," Dante continued, "but they will be. They're already speaking coherently. They'll be laying down charms and shit pretty soon. Believe me, you don't want to wait until that starts."

"We should still get a contract," said the older man. "And the banks aren't open anyway."

"Yes," said the chair. "We ... didn't really expect to need five thousand dollars in cash today."

Dante stuck his hands into his pockets. "I'll be back tomorrow, then," he said, and started to walk back toward where he'd left his motorcycle.

Sounds drifted from the clubhouse, like the wind was laughing to itself. The homeowners association board members scurried to keep up with Dante so he didn't leave them behind with the eerie laughter. "Won't they just spread more before tomorrow?" asked the youngest of the women.

"Probably," said Dante. "If I were you, I'd tell the folks in the houses closest to that building to go to a hotel for the night."

This was not a popular suggestion, but Dante didn't care. These were well-off people and the demons weren't going to eat anyone in the next twenty-four hours; Dante had no concern for them at all. He got on his bike and reiterated that he would be back in the morning, and drove away.

Thus far there had been no hint of the shadow following him. He returned to the beltway and turned the wrong direction, keeping his speed down just so he could feel the wind move and test if there was anything on it. Traffic was fairly light, and the evening was fair; Dante went halfway around the beltway, and then pulled over by the side of the road.

He sat there in the darkness with one foot on the ground, while cars passed him every few seconds. The air carried the scents of gasoline and tar, evergreens and mown grass, and somewhere not too far away a dead animal was rotting along the freeway. It was all very normal, even the smell of rot, with no indication of anything unearthly at all.

Dante waited for perhaps fifteen minutes, but no hint of his stalker brushed against his awareness. Was this a good thing? It seemed like it should have been a good thing. As Dante restarted his bike and headed home, however, uneasiness rested in his belly.

* * *

That night, Dante had the best night's sleep he'd gotten in months. He loved Nero, and missed having the kid snuggled up to his back as he went to sleep, but he certainly didn't miss that twitch in his nerves that kept him from sleeping deeply and often woke him around dawn. Dante didn't wake until well after noon, and for once he felt refreshed when he got up.

He was still broke, of course, and when he checked the fridge it turned out that Nero had not left him anything. There was food in there, but it was cheese and carrots and shit, nothing Dante could just warm up. He did eat a couple of carrots, just for lack of any better option, but that was almost like having nothing. Dante consoled himself with the knowledge that, unless that homeowners association changed their collective mind before he got there, he could have as much pizza as he could eat tonight.

Rebellion was not the best weapon for this job, so Dante left it on the wall and went into the back to grab Alastor. Nevan actually would have been a good choice as well, but of course Nevan was on its way to Fortuna with Nero.

That thought led Dante to once again look at the sheathed katana on the wall, and again he took it down just to feel it in his hand. There was no real temptation to take it with him - Yamato was extremely ill-suited to killing dozens of small devils - but it was interesting to hold it.

This was the only thing left to him of Vergil, and it wasn't even really his anymore. That hadn't bothered him when Nero had carried Yamato, but with the sword just hanging here in the back room, it kind of did now. After a long moment of thought, Dante touched the tip of the hilt to his lips and returned Yamato to the wall. He closed and locked the door, and left to make some money.

The trip back to Betsy Kelly's house was uneventful, and Dante again found the entire board in her living room. They were having some kind of brunch, but didn't offer him any, which made his mood turn tetchy.

They had a rudimentary contract typed out, which Dante took and carefully read. "I fail to see why I should sign this," he said at the end of it.

"We need some kind of formalized agreement," said the chair.

"I'm not indenturing myself to you for the rest of my life." Dante tossed the paper down.

"That's not what that means."

"We need some kind of guarantee you'll take care of these devils for us," said the youngest of the women.

"Oh, I'll take care of them for you," said Dante. "But I'm not going to promise that they'll never come back, and I'm not going to come back here and deal with them again for nothing if they do."

"We have to know that you'll take care of all of them," said the older man. "There are unscrupulous people. I'm not saying _you_ would purposefully leave some behind so that you could charge us again, but there are people who would, and we have to answer to the rest of the association."

"We have to be able to show the association that we're being careful with their money," said Betsy.

Dante pointed at the paper on the table. "Okay," he said, "but I'm not signing _that."_

"All right," said Betsy, uncertainly. "Would you be willing to guarantee they won't come back for a year?"

"No," said Dante. "Even if they really were rats, no exterminator is going to sign something like that."

"But how can we know you'll get rid of them?" asked the older of the other women.

Dante looked them over. They weren't trying to screw him, he decided. They were just unclear on what they were dealing with here. "I guess you just have to trust me," said Dante. "Or not, in which case I'll go home, and in probably a week or so your clubhouse is going to start charming everyone who comes near it. Do you know what a charm is?" They looked at one another, and two shook their heads. "It's how they keep you docile while they eat you. A good solid charm can make your neighbors come drag you to the clubhouse to be charmed yourself. Eventually these things will be out of control and I'll come back and destroy them on my own time, but I can't promise any of you will be alive when that point comes."

Now he had their attention. "Could that really happen?" asked Betsy Kelly.

"What you have there," said Dante, "is a collective intelligence. Those demons are multiplying, and the more of them there are, the smarter and more powerful they are. I don't know which of you had the idea to wait this long to call a devil hunter, but they're already pretty advanced. They'll be laying charms really soon." He waited, and they were silent, so he added, "Which is it? Am I killing these things, or am I wasting my time here?"

The youngest woman laid a hand on Betsy's arm. "Let me go print out another version of the contract," she said. "We'll just put in there a guarantee that they're all gone and leave out duration."

"Would that be okay?" asked Betsy.

Dante smiled at her. "Sure," he said, "but only if you also put in there that I'm not cleaning up the dead devils, and I'm not responsible for property damage."

An hour later he signed their contract, took their cash, and went to deal with those demons. The younger man wanted to come with him. "I can't stop you," Dante told him, "but if you die that's your problem." He hoped that caveat would be discouraging, but apparently it wasn't discouraging enough because the man tagged right along.

"What's your name?" Dante asked as they entered the clubhouse.

"Caleb Richards," he said. "I don't know if I caught yours."

"Dante." The clubhouse walls shivered with distant laughter. "When did all this start up, anyway?"

"Two months ago," said Caleb. "It was just noises in the walls at first, like something moving around. We thought it was rats. We asked our maintenance company to take a look at it, but they didn't find anything. A couple of weeks later we called an exterminator, but he ran out of here as soon as he saw the things and wouldn't come back."

"Smart," said Dante. He pushed open the door to the pool room, half-expecting to be attacked the moment he entered, but nothing came at him.

The now-bright sunlight pouring through the skylights illuminated the dark ripples in the deep water. It was as though barrels of ink had been poured into the pool, but the ink had some kind of mind of its own. The dark clouds swirled and billowed like a thunderstorm at the bottom of the pool.

"Holy shit," said Caleb.

_"Dante,"_ trembled the walls. The sound came from all around the room. _"It is too late. We are beyond your reach."_

One of the little devils swam up to the surface and crawled out of the water, and stood staring up at Dante. He could see why they'd been described as rat-like, because it was about the size of a large rat and it had a long tail the way a rat might. In shape, however, it was more like a tiny dinosaur, something ancient and terrible drawn in miniature.

_"You cannot hope to even reduce our power,"_ said the walls. _"We are beyond you already."_

More of them started to come up out of the water, and Caleb took a nervous step backward toward the door. Dante walked toward the pool, and some of the demons leapt at him but it was no trouble at all to just kick them straight back into the pool. One of them got its teeth into his boot, and then a second one clamped down as well. Dante sliced them in half with Alastor, then crouched to plunge the blade into the water and fed power into the sword.

The dark mass heaved, lunging up through the water and half out of the pool as the electricity ripped through it. The clubhouse walls shrieked, a sound like pain and anguish and fury all at once; the lunging darkness splashed back into the pool before making it to the edge. More small devils, the ones that were already out of the water, flung themselves at Dante, and Dante drew Ebony to knock them into the pool to be electrocuted, or just shoot them through the head. He left the sword in the water until the dark mass began to dissipate and spread out, no longer coherent but mixing with the water like ordinary ink, and then continued to electrocute the water for another thirty seconds or so just to be sure the job was done.

When he stood up he was dripping wet from the water the dark mass had flung everywhere, and he gave his coat a shake to get the worst of the water off of it. The decapitated heads biting his boot were still attached, and when Dante kicked his foot they wouldn't come off.

"What did you do?" asked Caleb from the doorway. "What is that thing?"

"What thing?" Dante brushed at the biting heads with Alastor's tip, but they still didn't come loose. Then he saw that Caleb was looking at Alastor, and he said, "It's an electric sword. What does it look like?"

"... how did you get an electric sword?"

The little devils had teeth that were almost bigger than their heads, and even crouching down to pull the heads didn't get their jaws out of his boot. Dante had to cut them in half to get them to let go. "It's an interesting story," he said. "You'd be interested, if I were in a mood to talk about it." He threw the devil pieces into the water and then walked around the pool. He could not see any live devils, and the inky presence in the water had been dispelled, but he knew, with certainty, that there were some live demons not very far away. He leveled his sword at the far wall. "What's behind here?"

"The filtration system for the pool," said Caleb.

"I need to get at it."

With Caleb's help getting into the maintenance recesses of the building, Dante cleared the devils out of the clubhouse. It was tedious, but not very difficult; with their collective consciousness disrupted, they were near-mindless things, and they threw themselves at him with unthinking fury. All Dante had to do was get close to them, and they crawled out of the walls and piping to attack him. They were in groups of sometimes fifteen or twenty at a time, which made it difficult to avoid being bitten, but the bites weren't serious.

By the time he was doing a final walk-through of the clubhouse, reasonably satisfied that it was probably clean but double-checking to be sure, he'd only been at it for about six hours, and Caleb looked unimpressed. "These things don't seem to be very hard to kill," he said.

Dante offered him Alastor. "Do you want to try it?" he asked. When Caleb hesitantly reached for the sword, Dante pulled it back. "Just kidding. Alastor would kill you."

"Funny," said Caleb.

"What's funny is that you think it wouldn't."

Caleb stared at him for a few moments, clearly unsure whether to take him seriously. Dante spared him the effort. "They're easy to kill," said Dante, "because I know how to do it. If you'd rather I left and let you do it yourself, just let me know."

"No," said Caleb. "You're the expert."

"Yes. Yes, I am." Dante walked out the back door of the clubhouse so he could go around the outside of the building to check the outer walls. "Once they're all gone from here, I need to get into the nearest houses. You want to go warn them that they'll need to let me in?"

"We told them what was going on last night," said Caleb. "Probably some of them are still gone."

Dante gave him a look. "Then I guess someone needs to find them, so they can let me into their houses."

It took a few moments for Caleb to catch on. "I ... suppose I'll go talk to Betsy," he said. "She has contact information for everyone."

"Good idea," said Dante.

It wasn't yet sunset, but the sun was easing toward the horizon and the sky was beginning to bronze. Dante wondered how much light his stalker could handle; it had followed him in the old city when it was not much darker than this. After Caleb left to find Betsy, Dante moved partway between the clubhouse and the next home over, and just stood there, waiting to see if that faint sense of _devil_ would brush against his nerves.

A few minutes later he felt something, but it wasn't the light touch of his follower. The demon surged toward him, and Dante pulled Alastor into his hand although he looked all around and saw nothing.

It burst straight up out of the ground almost under Dante's feet. He kicked off it as it rose, to keep his balance and push himself backward and get back onto level ground, and then skipped to one side to avoid it slamming back down onto him. It lifted itself, one end of it still in the ground as if it were a monstrous tentacle three feet in diameter, but there was a hideous bloated face on the end of it.

"Dante," it said. A dozen thin, bony arms extended from the maggot-white creature's sides. "You'll not come quietly, will you?"

"Depends," said Dante. "Where are we going?"

The thing looked at him for a long moment. Its body was swollen, seeming to be close to bursting out of its skin, and its face was similarly puffed. Its dark eyes were small and beady, but then it blinked and two more eyes on the sides of its head blinked open. Dante doubted this thing had anything at all do with the pesky little devils that had nested in the clubhouse, and that was genuinely interesting.

"No," said the demon at last. The blunt tips of its arms suddenly flipped backward, revealing curved claws that shone with a coating of liquid. "You'll not come quietly, I suspect."

Dante scoffed. "You don't know that," he told the devil. "I might, if I knew where we were going. You're just making assumptions, and they have a saying, here in the human world, about making assumptions."

The demon grinned, or at least Dante assumed the rictus that pulled at the sides of the creature's mouth and exposed needle-like teeth was supposed to be a grin. "This will be more fun anyway," it said.

"Yeah," said Dante, flipping his sword and running sparks down the blade. "It probably will be."


	5. Chapter 5

Nero woke to the sound of footsteps, each step a sharp _tap_ from the heel, followed by a faint echo. He was concealed at the moment, where he'd slept on the mezzanine, so he lay still, listening.

The visitor walked boldly into the middle of the castle's great hall and paused there. "Nero? Are you here?"

It was Kyrie.

Of _course_ it was Kyrie.

Sitting up, Nero leaned against the wall and wiped his hand over his face. He couldn't see her, but he heard Kyrie resume walking, crossing the great hall. She seemed to be alone – no second set of steps accompanied her – and part of him reached and yearned toward the sounds she made. Without even having to see her, he knew the way she looked, the way she moved. The small steps she was taking told him that she was wearing one of her long dresses; she'd have her hands folded before her as she walked.

She went to the door on the opposite side of the hall from where Nero had rested, and again paused before going through it. "Nero?" she called. "Are you here?"

All he had to do was stay quiet. There was no way up to the mezzanine, for a human, except the stairs outside the hall; Nero could easily evade her by sneaking out while she searched the interior of the castle. All he had to do was stay quiet, wait until she left the hall, and then jump down to the floor and go out the front.

"Nero?" she called again, although she didn't sound like she expected an answer anymore. She took a step toward the side door.

"Yeah," said Nero. "I'm here."

Kyrie's steps quickly crossed the hall toward him, and stopped beneath the mezzanine. Nero pushed off his coat, which he'd been using as a blanket, stood up, and walked to the railing where he could look down and see her.

She was smiling as she looked up at him. "Hi," she said.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"Terrance Foster saw you get off the ferry," she said. "He said you came this way."

She was as beautiful as Nero remembered, in a dress the color of a robin's egg, her hair polished by the summer, her smile like the sun itself. Almost by reflex, Nero turned to put his devil bringer to the other side of his body, so that Kyrie wouldn't easily see it. "Well," he said, "you found me."

"Can I come up there?" she asked.

"I don't know if you want to," said Nero. "I haven't had a shower in three days." She laughed, so he added, "I'm not kidding. I kind of reek." He touched his chin, and the days of stubble there.

"I'll come up there," said Kyrie.

That would be a lot of trouble for her. "No," said Nero. "I'll come down." He laid a hand on the railing and vaulted over it, to land lightly on the floor below.

He did it without thinking, but Kyrie yelped when he fell. He turned, and she had her hands clapped over her mouth, staring at him in shock.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Are you okay?" She looked up toward the railing, the top of it perhaps twenty feet up, then back at Nero.

That had been stupid of him. "Yeah," he said. "I'm fine. It's ... it's a demon thing." The way she was looking at him, he thought it might be best not to admit that if he wanted, he could leap back up there with ease. He couldn't remember if Kyrie had ever seen the way he could move after his hand had changed, but the look on her face, like she'd just realized he was some kind of alien, told him that she either hadn't or it had slipped her mind.

"Sorry," he said again, and turned to put his right hand behind him once more. He wished he'd put his coat on before jumping down here.

"It's okay," said Kyrie, although she always said that, and it sounded like reflex this time, too. Eventually she looked around. "What are you doing here?"

The castle was empty, as it often was. There had been a time when the castle had been a popular pilgrimage and tourist destination, but that had been before Nero had been born. The church still maintained it, and Nero had been brought here many times as a child, to see what were said to be the places where Sparda had slept and eaten, and the seat from which he had ruled Fortuna. These times, however, it typically only saw visitors during the high holy days.

Nero didn't believe in Sparda as a deity anymore, but, nevertheless, finding the things he had beneath the castle had almost felt like uncovering blasphemy. "I'm going through the Order's papers," said Nero. "They knew some things about opening and closing hellgates, and we need to know what they knew."

"Oh." Kyrie looked down, and said, "They said you left with that guy. The one who shot His Holiness."

"Dante," said Nero. "Yeah. That's where I've been."

"I wish you'd come to tell me goodbye."

Nero didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing at first, and the silence lengthened. He _should_ have told her goodbye. Or told her something. After a few moments, Kyrie said, "All of a sudden you were just gone, and you hadn't come or called to say goodbye or tell me anything. I've been worried."

"I'm sorry." Nero hadn't meant to worry anyone, and he didn't doubt for a moment that Kyrie _had_ worried. An apology was inadequate, so he tried to explain. "I thought it would be better if I didn't. It was hard enough to leave, but I knew I had to. I didn't want to make it hard for you, too."

Something about her expression changed. "Nero," she said. "That wasn't your decision to make."

Her hair did not fully conceal the marks on her forehead and near her ear. They'd faded since the last time Nero had seen them, white now instead of pink, but they were still visible to anyone who knew where to look. Nero's eyes found them, and he made himself look away. "I didn't want to hurt you." Yet again.

"It's _my_ place to decide if I want to be protected from being hurt," said Kyrie. "Not yours. It hurt me more for you to leave without telling me anything." When Nero just looked at the floor, with no answer to give, her voice softened. "Nero, you've always wanted to do the right thing, but when it comes to me, your idea about what the _right thing_ is ... it doesn't often consider what _I_ want."

There was nothing else for Nero to say, except to apologize again, so he tried to change the subject. "Are you still with Edgar?"

"Yes," said Kyrie.

That tugged a complicated string of emotions through Nero's heart, but he smiled anyway. Edgar was good for her. He made her happy, and he would never hurt her. "That's good to hear," he said.

"Where are you staying?"

"Ahhh ..." Nero made a kind of helpless gesture, because he knew what her answer to this was going to be. "Here in the hall." When Kyrie's eyes widened, he said, "It's comfortable enough."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "You can stay with me."

"I can't," said Nero.

Kyrie gave him that you're-being-so-silly smile that had always captured his heart, and his heart was captured by it now. "Of course you can. You can have the front bedroom."

Everything that was in Nero wanted to accept. Seeing her, hearing her voice ... he wanted to embrace her. It hurt. It gave him a literal, physical pain at the base of his throat, and just behind his sternum. "I can't," he said. "I'm not finished here. I've only been through half the papers."

"I'm not saying come back with me and then stay there forever," she said. "Just come and have a shower, and then sleep there tonight."

"No," he said again, but when Kyrie took his hand he didn't have the will to continue to refuse. And, it _would_ be nice to have a proper shower. "Hang on," he said, pulling his hand free. "Let me get my stuff."

So as not to freak Kyrie again, Nero took the stairs back up to the second level. This was stupid, he told himself as he went through the castle corridors. He shouldn't do this. The only things waiting for him at Kyrie's place were heartache and regret. And what if he had one of his little episodes while he was there?

When he got back up onto the mezzanine, though, and went to the railing to look down at Kyrie, he couldn't tell her that he'd changed his mind. He tried, and the words just wouldn't come.

"Let's go," she said, with a gentle smile. Nero put on his coat and his sword, put the papers he'd already collected into his duffel, and leapt back down to the floor.

They left Nero's car parked outside the castle, and took Kyrie's back to town. "Is that a new coat?" asked Kyrie.

Nero ran his left hand over his knee, and the fold of fabric laying across it. "Yeah," he said. "My other one got, ahhh ... damaged. One of Dante's friends bought a new one for me." That reminded him of something. "Thanks for that gray wool coat you bought me three years ago. It got really cold this past winter. I was damned happy to have it."

Kyrie smiled a little. "You're welcome. I'm glad you've gotten some use out of it. What have you been doing with yourself?"

The question made Nero's mood crash. He did what he could to conceal that. "Devil hunting, mainly," he said. "There's good money in it on the mainland. _If_ you know how to ask for payment." He made himself laugh a little. "Dante kind of sucks at that part, so he's always broke."

"He doesn't know how to get paid?" asked Kyrie.

"He enjoys killing demons _way_ too much," said Nero. "He'd do it for free. A lot of times he _does_ do it for free. He likes it so much, he'll go kill little weak things instead of letting someone else take care of it." Nero snorted. "It's like getting out a howitzer to swat a fly."

"What do you mean?"

Nero started to answer, but then remembered that he'd never told Kyrie about Dante's relationship with Sparda. She still venerated Sparda, and he had no idea how she'd react to the news. "He's just a really good devil hunter," said Nero. "You don't send a general on a rat hunt. It's a waste of his skills."

"Oh," said Kyrie. "I thought you were talking about the rumor that went around after you left, that Sparda was his father."

That kind of stopped Nero dead. He had no idea what to say about that.

When he didn't reply, Kyrie said quietly, "Nero, why don't you ever tell me anything?"

"I didn't want to upset you," said Nero.

Kyrie sighed, quietly, and Nero knew that wasn't good enough. "I'm sorry," he said, although that wasn't good enough, either.

After a few moments, Kyrie said, "Henry Sutton said his parents found out when you said something about it. So you knew before anyone else."

"... it was in the Order's records," said Nero, because there was nothing else to say. "The things they were doing, they started to make it big and blatant on purpose, in hopes of making Dante curious and getting him to come here. They wanted to do the same thing to him that they almost did to you and I."

"I see." Then she asked, "How long are you staying?"

The subject change didn't fool Nero, but he rolled with it. "Just another day, probably. Until I finish going through the records." He ran his hand over his duffel, remembering the documents inside it. "I've already found more than I wanted, but I'm sure there's more. You know, I skimmed all of this once before, but it really just hit me yesterday ... the things the Order was doing were evil from the start."

Kyrie laughed a little, with no amusement in it. "Of course what they did was evil," she said. "How many people were killed by those demons?"

"I mean from the very beginning," said Nero. "Long before the hellgate was opened. Before you and I were born, even. They were opening small passages to the demon world and doing research on the demons for almost a hundred years."

"Why?" asked Kyrie. "To find out how to better fight them?"

"Yeah. Except that before they got their hands on Yamato, they had to open gates the old-fashioned way, with a ... sacrifice."

Silence, while Kyrie absorbed that. Eventually she asked, quietly, "They were killing people?"

"They got really good at covering it up," said Nero. "They found a way to make a blood sacrifice that didn't leave physical marks. I don't understand how they did it yet, but I guess it was some kind of demonic magic. They'd kidnap someone, murder them, and then put them to bed in their homes to be found dead by their families. Remember Mrs. Nichols, that old lady who lived on the corner? Remember how she died in her sleep? She didn't die peacefully in her sleep."

"Please tell me you're kidding," said Kyrie.

"I wish I was kidding. I never really noticed how people stopped dying in their sleep all the time around the time I turned ten, but you know, looking back, they did. That's when the Order found Yamato and started using it to open gates instead. Yamato has power. With Yamato, they only needed a little blood and didn't have to kill anyone anymore."

"I ... guess that's good," said Kyrie. "Wow. Wow."

"Yeah," said Nero. "All that time the Order was preaching about the sanctity of human life and the importance of protecting it, that's what they were doing. I don't think Sparda would have approved." He knew Dante didn't approve of things like that.

Kyrie said nothing more and drove in silence, and Nero let her think whatever she was thinking.

They drove into town, and Nero moodily watched the buildings and people pass. It gave him a pang, down in the pit of his stomach. He knew all of the turns of the road, all of the buildings, all of the people they passed. Even the air smelled and felt familiar and ... somehow safe.

Nero could believe that here he would never be troubled by flashbacks again.

Kyrie still lived in the house where they'd grown up. There were new curtains and new furniture in the living room, and at first it was like walking into a place Nero didn't know at all. Then his glance happened to fall onto one of the hutches, and within it was a porcelain angel with pure white, unglazed wings, and homesickness stabbed Nero through the chest when he immediately recognized it as the figurine he'd best loved as a child.

"I'm not staying long," he reminded her. "I'm leaving probably tomorrow."

"That's fine," she said. "You can sleep here tonight."

The downstairs front bedroom had been the guest bedroom as long as Nero could remember, and it was strange to think of sleeping there. He knew that the upstairs bedrooms weren't bedrooms anymore – one was a music room, and he thought the other might be a sunroom – but that made it no less weird to consider himself a _guest._

He took a shower, and that was _very_ nice after having slept in his car for two days and on the castle floor the night before. Afterward, with some clean clothes on and his chin smooth again, he felt considerably more civilized.

Nero knew he should, at a minimum, warn Kyrie about his little attacks. She should know what to expect if she saw him freak. Really, he shouldn't have come here at all. This was stupid. But since he was here, he needed to tell Kyrie not to try to get close to him if he flipped.

"Come have something to eat," Kyrie called when he came out of the guest bedroom. "I made you chicken salad."

Nero took a seat at the kitchen's bar counter and accepted the sandwich she put in front of him. He just didn't know how to say what he had to say.

He took a bite of the sandwich, and forgot all of that. "Damn," he said. "This is _so good."_ It was exactly like how his mother had made it, with pickle relish and egg; he started to chew very slowly as the sense-memory of hundreds of family lunches crashed over him.

"I'd hoped you'd like it," said Kyrie with a smile.

"It's amazing," said Nero. It was like his mother's love was echoed from years past. _You're amazing._

He wanted to tell her. Everything. All of it. He wanted to tell her that he was damaged, and why, and how it was ruining his life. She'd sympathize. She'd take him into her arms and tell him that he wasn't ruined, that she still loved him no matter what, and he'd lay his cheek on her shoulder and inhale her scent. Nero's eyes drifted half-closed, and it was like a real sensation, like he could really feel her against his skin and smell her perfume.

"I shouldn't be here," he said, and took another bite of the sandwich.

"Of course you should." Kyrie started to put things away, wrapping up the bread and putting it into the bread box.

"I need to finish up in the castle basement and get back to Dante," said Nero. "Weird things are happening. I don't know if we're on a clock or not."

"What do you mean? What's happening?"

Nero didn't much want to talk about it, so he pared it down to the essentials. "There's this ... I dunno how to describe it, like a crack between the worlds, that Dante doesn't know how to close. The Order was opening and closing gates all the time, and we thought they might have left us some information we could use." He took another bite, then added, "I don't know if I understand much of it. Agnes used a lot of weird terminology."

"Well, I'll take you back as soon as you're done eating, if you like." Wiping a washcloth over the counter, Kyrie gave him a knowing look. "You have to promise to come home for dinner, though."

"I will."

* * *

Nero spent the rest of the day rummaging through files. It helped that he'd already been through it all once, and that they remained the way he'd left them; half-memories of glanced-over information about the hellgates guided him to the right shelves. Kyrie had sent him back into the castle with some shopping bags to make moving files easier, and he filled them with binders, anything that seemed even slightly relevant. He and Dante could go over them in more detail when he got home.

He knew it would be weird to read the shelf of files they'd accumulated on Dante, so he saved it for last. Agnes had not been involved in that from the beginning, but had come in much later, so the first few dozen pages were in ordinary English rather than Agnes's personal code. _DANTE: Alleged to be the natural offspring of Our Lord,_ the unknown author had written in a cramped hand. _The demons speak of him as having recently fought and defeated Arvre. More data are needed. Panis is being sent to observe and confirm._ Then, after a space, a list of characteristics. _Age: Unknown, believed to be in his thirties. Occupation: Devil hunter. Family: None known living. Associates: One demon, several humans._ The list went on, describing Dante's habits. A yellowed Polaroid was stapled to the bottom corner of the page. It had been taken from a distance of Dante walking down a sidewalk; his white hair and red coat made him unmistakable.

Nero read the file for a while with a strange feeling in his belly. It spoke of Dante reverently for dozens of pages, but the text gradually morphed into something less benign. Several pages of calculations ended with chilling conclusions regarding the utility of Dante's blood, and all the things the Order could do if they had some. The problem of how to control such a deadly creature was examined, followed by profiles of Dante's human friends, two pages each.

Dante's sexual relationship with Lady was correctly identified, and she was highlighted as a particular weakness of his.

Nero stuffed that file into the bags, along with as many of the rest on Dante as he could fit. Then he took the bags out to his car and emptied them into his trunk, so that he could go back in and swipe the remainder. Dante would have found a way out of that trap, Nero had no doubt, but there was no reason for him to leave this laying around here for someone else to find. It would be better to remove every trace of his lover from the records.

It was late when he finished; the sun had already gone down when he took his last trip out to the car. Now, Nero knew, he should just leave. He could still get a hundred miles toward home before he needed to stop for the night, as long as he made the last ferry to the mainland, and if he rushed he probably could. He dumped the last of the files into the car and shut the trunk, and got into the car.

He should just leave. He fully intended to just leave as he drove back to town, but when he got to the turn to get to the ferry, he didn't take it. He'd promised ... but he knew that wasn't the reason.

"I'm weak," he muttered.

Kyrie had made some clam chowder for dinner, and it smelled _divine,_ like everything bright that lived in the sea. Nero was pulled toward the kitchen as though on a string, leaning his sword against the corner of the doorway on his way through, from habit. "You didn't make that for me, did you?" he said, hoping the answer was yes.

The answer was yes. "Of course I did." Kyrie stirred the chowder and then tasted it, and added another dash of pepper sauce. "Silly thing. Sit down."

"Can I use your phone first?"

"Of course."

Nero tried calling Dante again, and again there was no answer. "That's so weird," he said. "I told Dante I'd call when I got here, and I tried to call from the port but he didn't pick up. He's still not picking up."

"Is that not like him?" Kyrie tasted the chowder again, and seemed to be satisfied this time; she got down two bowls.

"He'll pick up if he's home." Nero sat down at the dining-room table, musing. "So I guess he must not be home. I hope this means he's working."

Kyrie set a bowl of chowder in front of Nero, and then sat down across the table from him with one of her own. "You say that like he might not be."

Nero snorted, and then took a bite of the chowder, and completely lost his train of thought. What Kyrie had used in it had probably come in on the boats that very morning; it was everything Nero could never get on the mainland, and everything he wanted or needed. "This is so good," he said, weakly.

She smiled. "It's just chowder, Nero. Don't be dramatic."

"You don't get it," he said. "They don't eat like this on the mainland. You go to buy fish and it's been dead for like three days, and most of the restaurants fry it in batter to cover that up. I think I've had good fish maybe twice since I left."

"I guess I can believe that," said Kyrie. "You look good, though. You're taking care of yourself."

Well, shit. "Not well enough," said Nero darkly, before he could stop himself. Then, because that had been stupid, he asked, "How is everyone?"

"Fine, mostly," said Kyrie, gracefully accepting the change of subject. "Mrs. Forrester has been down off and on, with chronic lung disease. We're afraid that she won't survive the next time it happens."

"That's too bad." Nero liked the Forresters, especially Mrs. Forrester, and the oatmeal cookies she had given out so generously on holidays.

"Everyone else is doing okay, though. Jack and Elisa are getting married. Janice is already married, to Timothy West if you can believe that."

"No way," aid Nero, but Kyrie assured him that it was all true.

They spoke until almost midnight; Kyrie had always been a clearinghouse for the latest news, and she knew everything. She asked about Nero's life with Dante, because, according to her, "People ask about you sometimes." Nero told her a few devil-hunting stories from back before he was crippled, and about the huge slug thing that had come at him thinking he was Dante, and left out the part about his flashbacks and panic attacks.

"They're lucky to have you there," said Kyrie. "I wish we still had you here."

It was the first time she'd said anything along those lines, and it stunned Nero to silence for a moment. While he tried to get a grip on that, she continued, "I'm sorry for the way everyone treated you."

"Let's not talk about that," said Nero. That was a topic that would make him angry, and he didn't want to get angry. Not here, not now. Not in his current condition.

"I just wanted you to know," said Kyrie.

Nero changed the subject. "Have any demons turned up since I left?"

"No. Don't worry, we'll call you if we see any." She smiled.

"Oh. Well, if you do, be sure you talk to me instead of Dante. I'll make sure Dante gives you a good price."

Kyrie sort of cocked her head to the side, and Nero realized that was the wrong thing to say. _Why wouldn't you come yourself?_ was the question that was coming, and he headed it off by yawning widely. "Well," he said, "I should probably get to bed. I need to head back in the morning."

"You can't stay another day?"

"That hellcrack isn't doing anyone any good." Nero stood up and looked down at his devil bringer. He ought to sleep in his car, but he didn't know of a way to do that without raising more uncomfortable questions. He'd never flipped out right after waking up; there was at least that. He still had nightmares sometimes, but they were confined to sleep, and even Dante drowsily pinning him to the bed had never triggered a flashback. Maybe it would be safe. "I need to get an early start and be on the first ferry."

"All right." Kyrie rose as well, and then unexpectedly pulled him into a brief hug. "I've missed you, Nero."

_Damn._ She was as soft and warm as Nero had imagined, and she smelled like lavender and moss. He embraced her by reflex, with his left hand only, his devil bringer hanging at his side. It would be so easy to just turn his head a little, and touch his lips to hers ... he remembered the way she tasted ...

But then she pulled away, keeping the hug chaste. "It's really good to see you," she said.

"I should get some sleep," he said.

* * *

Nero did not have a nightmare that night; his dreams were full of Kyrie. Her hair, her lips, the feel of her pressed against him. He'd never slept with Kyrie, but that didn't prevent his body from filling in the blanks, and he woke in the morning with a hard erection.

The light in the window was soft and watery, pre-dawn. Nero had dreamed of Kyrie, but the person in his imagination while he took care of that erection was Dante. Dante's strong shoulders, his searching mouth, the sound of his voice, the clean masculine scent of him. The way he fucked Nero when his blood was high after killing something. Nero came hard into his hand, and quietly cleaned it up with a tissue from the nightstand.

Now Nero had a choice: he could wait for Kyrie to wake, and maybe make breakfast for her, and part in a couple of hours, or he could sneak out now and make the first ferry. It took him only minutes to decide; he moved carefully as he got dressed to keep from creaking the floor with his steps, gathered up his duffel, and let himself silently out the front door.

She might be upset when she found him gone, but he thought she wouldn't be surprised. This had been a nice enough visit, and he'd gotten through it without flipping out, but there was no point pressing his luck.

And, anyway, he was terrible with goodbyes, especially when he was sure he would never see the other person again.

He was easily in time for the first ferry to the mainland, and he found a pay phone in the mainland port to call home again. Again it rang, and no one answered. Okay, now Nero started to get worried ... he could believe Dante would be out all day yesterday, but not all day yesterday _and_ this morning.

But then another possibility occurred to him, and he growled at the thought that perhaps Dante was at someone else's home, laying in someone else's bed. Fucking someone else. He slammed the receiver down, retrieved his change when the phone returned it to him, and stalked back to the car. Once he was back on the interstate he put in his loudest CD, opened the windows, and set the cruise control for exactly eight miles over the speed limit.

He should never have gone to Kyrie's place at all. He shouldn't have said anything when she came to the castle yesterday, and he shouldn't have gone back to town with her, and he should have just gone straight to the ferry after returning from the castle. He would have been that much closer to home right now if he'd caught the last ferry the night before instead of going to Kyrie's for dinner.

"Damn her," Nero muttered under his breath. That whole episode with her had been stupid, and he'd _known_ it at the time, and done it anyway. What the hell was wrong with him? He was weak.

There was going to be hell to pay if he got home and found Dante in Lady's bed.

He had to stop for gas before noon, and he picked up some gas station food – chips and beef jerky and a bottle of coke – so that he wouldn't need to stop again for a while. The farther he drove, however, the more he wondered if he was misinterpreting things. Maybe Dante hadn't picked up because he'd unplugged the phone again, or he was out on an especially long job. The older hunter did travel for jobs on occasion, not frequently but always unexpectedly. He should have been expecting Nero to call, but if something had come up, it had come up.

The road seemed to crawl by; Nero began to measure time in terms of distance to the next rest stop, or to the next time he would need to put more gas in the tank. It was midnight when he finally got too tired to continue safely and stopped by the side of the road to sleep, but as soon as he closed his eyes questions began to pace again in his mind.

What was going on? Why hadn't Dante answered the phone? Nero wished he'd thought to look for another pay phone at the last rest stop, but it hadn't crossed his mind at the time and now he was in the middle of nowhere. It took some time for him to fall to sleep.

He got home around two in the afternoon; it was cloudy, and he hoped it was bright enough to keep their watchers away because there was no way he was delaying further. He saw Dante's car along the street when he pulled into a space, but not his motorcycle. Nero parked, filled his duffel with files from the trunk, and carried them and his sword toward the office.

His devil bringer began to brighten as he approached the building, and Nero's worry began to ease somewhat.

And there was Dante, right there on the couch, eyes closed. That little itch of worry was instantly replaced by irritation, and Nero threw his duffel to the floor. "Why the hell aren't you picking up the phone, dumbass? And why is it so dark in here?" All the curtains were down, and the only light came from two of the wall lamps.

Dante's eyes drifted open, and he regarded Nero for a few seconds. Then he started to laugh.

Nero leaned Red Queen against the wall, outright angry now. "What the hell is so funny?"

"Wow, I'm glad you're here," said a woman from the bar; it was Trish. "He's your responsibility now."

"What?" Dante's laughter continued, deep and mad, and Nero started to become concerned again. "Why are you here? What's going on?"

Trish pointed at Dante as she hopped off the barstool. "I am out of nerves to deal with him. You deal with him now."

"What's going on?" asked Nero again. He glanced at Dante, giggling on the couch. "Is he drunk?"

"He's high," said Trish. "He had a run-in with a demon and got careless, and it poisoned him. Now you get to watch him."

_"Nero,"_ said Dante, in between giggles. His voice was faintly resonant, like he was getting close to triggering although there were no other signs of it, and he struggled to sit up. "You're home!" His coordination was all off, and he almost rolled right off the couch rather than sitting upright. That was apparently hilarious, and Dante dissolved again into laughter. Nero went to help him get himself sorted out; fear was starting to form in the younger hunter's throat.

"When did this happen?" asked Nero.

"Saturday," said Trish. "He was in the middle of a job, one that _I_ had to finish for him, so I took a cut of the pay for that. The rest of the cash is in the safe. I'm told that a demon came up out of the ground at him, and they fought, and it cut him and there was some kind of poison on its claws."

"He's been like this since _Saturday?"_ asked Nero, incredulous.

"Actually he was a lot worse at the start of it. He's been getting better."

Dante pawed at Nero's arm, trying to pull him down. "Nero," he said again. "You're finally home! You're so beautiful! I missed you, kid!" The words were a little slurred.

Trish crossed the room toward the door. "Make sure he drinks enough water," she said.

"You're not leaving, are you?" asked Nero, trying to fend off Dante's uncoordinated pulling. What the hell was he supposed to do?

"I absolutely am. I'm not his mother."

"Neither am I!" said Nero.

"No," said Dante. "You sure look like her though!"

"Oh, shut up." Nero put a hand on Dante's head. "Come on, Trish, what am I supposed to do?"

"Keep him inside and the curtains down," said Trish. She paused at the door and turned around. "Make sure he gets enough to drink, and don't let any devils in the building. It should wear off sooner or later."

"But what am ..." said Nero, but it was no use; Trish closed the door behind her. "Fantastic," he said to himself. "Well, who needed her?"

Dante was giggling again. Nero sat down next to him, and Dante leaned against his shoulder, then fell sideways across Nero's lap. "You're so beautiful," said Dante, looking up at him. His eyes were black, with only a thin rim of blue around the wide pupils.

"What the hell happened?" Nero asked him, but Dante just laughed at the question so Nero began to stroke his hair.

This was awful. How could Dante have let this happen to him? He must have gotten cocky, because no demon could touch him if he was paying attention. Nero ran his fingers through Dante's hair until the laughter quieted, and Dante's eyes began to slide closed.

"You're an idiot," Nero told him, but there was no force in the words. This was frightening. How could Dante have let this happen?

"Yeah," Dante agreed, smiling.

Maybe Nero just needed to babysit the man for a while. Trish must have been right; this would wear off on its own. "I need to get the rest of the stuff out of my car," he told Dante. "And get a shower."

"What?"

"A shower," said Nero again, but Dante opened his eyes again and looked questioningly up at him. "Dante, I stink, I need to clean up."

"Oh." Dante turned his head a bit to one side to bury his nose in Nero's crotch. "You do stink."

"So do you," said Nero, pushing Dante's head away, but he was gentle about it. "Maybe I'll give you a bath, too."

"What?" asked Dante, his voice confused again.

"Nevermind." Nero stroked Dante's hair until the confusion eased, then carefully extricated himself so he could stand up. "Don't go anywhere. I'll ... I'll be back in a few."

Dante lolled to one side, half-hanging off the couch. "I'm fine, kid," slurred the older hunter. "Just ... fine."

"Yeah," said Nero, but watching Dante flop around like that made him feel sick.

* * *

Once all of the Order's files were inside, Nero went for a shower and a shave. Then he hauled Dante into the bathroom for a shower of his own.

Dante could not walk. He stood up okay, but then shocked Nero by collapsing the moment he tried to take a step. Nero had to catch him to keep him from tumbling to the floor.

"Damn," said Nero, easing Dante down; the man was fucking heavy and Nero didn't have a good grip on him.

"I feel strange," said Dante. Once he was seated on the floor he moved to lay down, but Nero grabbed him by the shirt collar to keep him upright.

"You need to clean up," said Nero, feeling sick again. "Come on, let's try again."

Dante thought about this a moment, and then said, "Try what again?"

With Nero prepared for Dante's lack of balance, the next attempt went better. Nero got Dante into the shower and leaned against the wall, then undressed and stepped into the shower to undress Dante as well. He'd probably been in the same clothes since Saturday; Nero wondered if Trish just didn't realize that people who weren't full-blooded demons needed to bathe regularly, or if she hadn't wanted to see Dante naked, or if there was some other reason she hadn't cleaned him up at all since the week before.

"You are disgusting," said Nero when he got Dante's pants down to his knees and got a whiff of unwashed devil, but that just set off another episode of crazy laughter. "I don't know what's so funny about that." There was nothing funny in this at all. This was awful. Dante only laughed harder.

Dante's cock was rock-hard, but there was no way Nero was going to do anything about that, not with Dante in this condition. He kept Dante leaning against the shower wall and warmed the water up to tepid so he could soap down the giggling devil hunter. Dante arched under Nero's hand like a pleased cat.

"I killed it, you know," said Dante after a while.

"The demon that poisoned you?"

"Yes." Dante ran a hand over his hip. "It got me here."

There was no mark there now. Nero dribbled a little shampoo over Dante's hair and then scrubbed it in. "Before or after the poison turned you into a wet noodle?"

"After." Dante giggled. "I can still trigger."

"You sound like you're going to any second now," said Nero.

"I can't fall apart, kid," said Dante.

That was seriously frightening, once Nero realized what he was saying. "Trish said you were getting better." Dante didn't reply to that, instead looking curiously up toward the ceiling as though something up there were distracting him. There was nothing there that Nero could see, so he finished cleaning Dante's grimy hair and rinsed him down.

This was like dealing with an invalid, or someone too drunk to know up from down. Dante had been like this since _Saturday?_ How much longer was this going to last? Nero had no idea, no experience with this kind of thing at all, and he wished like hell that Trish had stuck around to give him more information.

He just hoped she was right, and that this did go away soon. A little pit of unease was worming around in his belly. How could the most powerful devil Nero knew let this happen to him? Why hadn't Dante just shrugged it off?

Once the water was shut off, but before Nero could guide Dante out of the shower, the older man took Nero's left hand and pulled it down to his erection. "Trish was driving me nuts," said Dante. "Now you're doing it."

"You are in no shape for this," Nero told him, taking his hand back.

"Claw me," said Dante.

_Fuck._ "No way," said Nero. That was a terrible idea for any number of reasons.

"Do it."

"You can't even stand up. Stop being stupid. You deal with that yourself and then we'll get you back on the couch."

Again Dante asked to be clawed, and again Nero refused; Dante was not in his right mind at all, and there was no way Nero was going to fuck someone who was high. Eventually Dante grasped that Nero wasn't going to do this for him, so he leaned against the wall with Nero behind him kissing his shoulders, and jacked himself off. That was far less fucked up than the alternative, but it was still pretty fucked up that even in the state he was in, Dante was sexy as hell. Nero didn't touch, except to kiss, but he could hear Dante pant and feel his body move, and under _any other circumstances_ he would have been more than pleased to start something. Not now, though.

After Dante came, Nero got him dressed, and helped him stagger back to the couch.

Before sitting down Nero checked the safe for cash, and found two grand there. That was a lot, but he wondered how much Trish had taken as her "cut." He ordered pizza, and then settled down on the couch again with the files stacked nearby, intending to read them. Nothing else to do, after all, and he could use a distraction, to help him forget his fear for his lover.

Dante soon shifted again to put his head back in Nero's lap, usually laying with his eyes closed but sometimes looking up at Nero. It was dark in the room, but Dante's eyes were so dilated it would have been cruel to open the curtains; Nero just laid the notebooks on the arm of the couch and let the glow of his right hand illuminate the pages.

Eventually, Dante noticed through his confusion. "Whatcha doing?"

"These are the Order's records," said Nero. "Didn't get a chance to actually read them before."

Dante thought about this for a moment. "What records?"

"The ones I went to Fortuna to get."

"You went to Fortuna? Why?"

"To visit some people," said Nero, because it was obviously pointless to try to have a conversation.

"Oh." Dante's eyes closed again. "I feel so strange."

"I know," said Nero quietly.

Dante went silent, and Nero went back to reading. It was hard to concentrate, though; Nero had gone almost a week without having to endure that constant sense of Dante being Dante, and now it was back. It was worse now that Dante was quiet, and Nero didn't have anything but the Order's dry notes and his unease to distract him.

He looked down at Dante, and ran the fingers of his right hand over Dante's cheek, and the line of his jaw; his talons brushed through the thin whiskers that had grown there. He could almost feel the blood pulsing under Dante's pale skin, moving through veins and arteries, coursing with power.

Dante opened his eyes, black pools that shone with the reflection of Nero's hand. The tips of Nero's claws touched his jaw, and Dante turned his head slightly, yielding.

"I love you," he said, the words sliding together.

Nero quickly moved his claws away, a strange little pain clenching the base of his throat. "You're an idiot," he said.

"I do."

"I know."

After the pizza came, Nero got some food into Dante and, mindful of what Trish had said, two glasses of water. Dante complained about the water, wanting beer instead, but Nero told him he could have some beer when he was well enough to fetch it himself. That led to an unfortunate episode of Dante trying to lurch across to the fridge, which ended, predictably, with both devil hunters on the floor.

"I'm starting to understand why Trish was so quick to get out of here," said Nero, as he helped to pick Dante up off the floor.

Getting Dante upstairs to sleep seemed like it would be an ordeal, and those two glasses of water were going to going to make him need to piss sooner or later, so Nero decided to let him sleep downstairs on the couch. There wasn't enough room there for two, so Nero brought down a pillow and a blanket to sleep on the floor.

It was impossible to tell if Dante went to sleep or was just laying quietly with his eyes closed, but Nero remained awake for quite some time after the lights were out. This was legitimately alarming. What if Dante took weeks or months to get better? Or what if he got better, but was never back to his right mind? Or - and Nero could barely handle the idea - what if this never got better at all? The timing of this could not possibly be chance; taking Dante out right after Nero left town had to have been someone's plan. He had a strong suspicion as to whose.

So what had happened while he was gone?

* * *

Nero honestly had no idea how to contact Trish, so the first person he asked the next morning was Dante.

It took several repetitions of the question before Dante understood it. "Nothing," said Dante eventually. "I've ... been home."

"Didn't Trish say anything?" Nero asked.

"Trish said a lot of things." Then Dante started to laugh, and Nero wrote him off as a source of information.

That left one person, really. Nero let himself be angry for a few hours, and around noon he got over it and called Lady. She picked it up on the third ring.

"Great," she said, after Nero identified himself. "I've got something for you and Dante's apparently useless right now."

"Yeah, about that," said Nero, who had no intention whatsoever of taking any jobs Lady might have. "What's been going on since Dante got drugged?"

"What do you mean?"

"Has there been any ... weirdness going on? Any unusual demon activity? Maybe demons taking advantage of Dante being higher than a kite and me being out of town?"

"Not that I've noticed," said Lady. She sounded thoughtful now. "You think this wasn't a coincidence."

"How could you possibly think it was?"

"Dante gets into trouble all the time. All the time, Nero. You know he has enemies, right?"

"Yeah, but ..."

"But nothing. No, I don't think there's anything suspicious in the timing here. Someone got lucky for once, that's all." She made an exasperated sound. "Anyway, there hasn't been anything weird from my perspective. But I'm not at my best right now. I haven't been out in the field since March, you know."

"Yeah, I know," said Nero. He still thought it was too coincidental to be a coincidence, but he had to concede that demons sometimes went for Dante for no reason.

"I'll keep an ear out for you, just in case."

"Thanks."

"So, now, there's this nest of devils that's supposed to be out in the south end ..."

"Later," said Nero, and he hung up. Let her give it to Trish; he had other things on his mind right now. Then he realized that he could have asked Lady for Trish's phone number, and he spent a few minutes seething over the fact that he'd have to call her back after hanging up on her to get it.

Dante just rested quietly until Nero came over to the couch to sit down next to his head, at which point he opened his eyes to look silently at the younger hunter. Was he actually getting better? He seemed to be the same now as he had yesterday, and his eyes certainly weren't any less dilated. That disquieting thought came back that perhaps Dante might _never_ get better, that he would be incapacitated forever. Nero gently played with Dante's hair, hoping like hell that this was just something that would wear off, like any other high. The fear in his belly suspected that it wouldn't.

"Hello," said Dante eventually.

"Hi." Nero brushed the feathery bangs out of Dante's eyes. His fear was silly: it had been less than a week and this was demonic poison. It was perfectly reasonable to think that this would clear up sooner or later. Nero just needed to be patient.

So Nero was patient the rest of the day, and the following day. He made sure Dante ate, and drank plenty of water, and put up with the random laughter that sometimes came out of nowhere. He got Dante back into the shower after a day without, and it went pretty smoothly that time, without any uncontrollable erections.

But the day after that Dante seemed the same as he'd been when Nero had gotten home, and that little gnaw of fear had become a chewing lamprey of anxiety.

It had now been a week since Dante had been poisoned, and he was still completely helpless. What had Trish even meant by telling Nero that Dante had been getting better? He wasn't getting better from Nero's point of view.

This was not only depressing, not only frightening, not only a horrifying state for his lover ... it was also a ton of work for Nero. Dante had to be helped with everything, from eating to bathing to using the toilet. The man was not a lightweight, and he was still inhumanly strong, which meant that Nero had to get his cooperation in order to move him for any reason; Dante's frequent confusion and bizarre moods meant at lot of repetitious explanations in order to persuade him to go along with what Nero needed.

It was exhausting, and Nero hated it, and he felt guilty for hating taking care of someone he loved but that didn't change the way he felt. By noon he was ready to scream.

"Maybe I ought to get Exultans to clean your blood out," Nero told Dante with a bitter smile. He didn't mean it seriously, until he realized what he'd said and gave it serious thought.

Exultans had claimed to be a supernatural drug counselor, after all. Maybe it was worth a shot. The sun was high in the sky, so if Nero was going to do it, it needed to do it now.

* * *

Finding the devil wasn't very difficult once Nero managed to remember the intersection Exultans had mentioned. He went to Broadway and Thirty-first and started to walk around in circles, until his right hand tingled to tell him that he was getting close. Then it was just a matter of triangulating in on the tattoo studio.

He found Exultans at the counter, chatting with a human; the devil's face lit up when it spotted Nero. "Does this mean you want me to free you?" it asked.

"Come with me," said Nero. "Now."

Exultans drifted in Nero's direction, less than enthusiastically. "We can do it here," it said.

"No. Come with me."

Something in Nero's tone must have told the demon that he wasn't fucking around; it slowly approached him, and followed him when Nero walked out the door. "You're not here for me to free you," it said once they were outside. "Are you?"

Nero turned and fixed it with a furious glare, and it backed up a pace with fear on its face. "Let's get something straight," said Nero. "I hate demons. I would blow your head off right here and now if I didn't need something from you."

"You need me?" asked Exultans hopefully.

"Yes. And that's the only reason I am letting you live, so don't screw with me."

Instantly, the creature's tone turned fawning. "I would _never_ screw with you," it said. "I know when I'm outmatched. You're far stronger than I am." Then it paused, and said, "But maybe we can trade?"

The human with whom Exultans had been speaking came out the door of the tattoo studio, and looked over the situation with a disapproving expression and threateningly crossed arms. "Brian, is everything okay out here?"

"Fine!" said the devil. "It's fine, everything's fine ..."

"Go back inside," said Nero, raising a hand to fend the man off. "This is demon business."

Without thinking, the hand he raised was his right one; he had his sleeve turned down, but his glowing palm was unmistakably devilish. The man took an alarmed step back.

Nero, realizing what he'd just done, said, "Yeah, I'm a demon. So is your friend here, or didn't you know that?" The new shock that spread across the guy's face said that he really _hadn't_ known that, which was almost funny. Almost. "Well, he is, and so am I, and this doesn't have anything to do with humans."

_"What?"_ said the man, and Exultans cringed.

"Just ... go back inside, Tom, okay?" said the demon.

"... what?" said the man again.

Nero didn't have time to hold this man's hand through this apparently world-upending news. Just to get rid of him, Nero lunged toward him while reaching for his sword, which made the guy skedaddle back into the building. Before any other humans could interfere, Nero grabbed Exultans by the shirt collar and hauled it toward Broadway and his car.

"That wasn't necessary!" said Exultans, trying unsuccessfully to resist. "You didn't have to do that!"

"I don't have time to fuck around with your interpersonal relationships," Nero told him. He got a better grip on the demon's shirt to keep it from squirming away.

"I'm trying to have a life here. You didn't have to do that." Exultans tried again to pull free.

Nero stopped and drew Blue Rose, and pressed the muzzle to the demon's face to make it stop trying to escape. "I don't have to care about you at all," he said coldly. "I could take your head off right now and go to sleep tonight and never think about you again. I need you to do something for me, but believe me, I don't need you _that_ much."

"Okay!" said the demon, cringing. "Okay, I'm sorry ..."

Nero reached his car, unlocked the passenger door, and threw the devil into the seat. "It's not my _objective_ to off you today, but I will if you don't cooperate with me."

Exultans was quiet and subdued for most of the ride back to Devil May Cry. It wasn't until Nero made the last turn when it asked, "So what do you need from me?"

Rather than tell it up front, Nero said, "If you try to fuck with me, or with Dante, I _will_ take your head off."

"I don't know what I need to tell you to make you believe me," said the demon. "I won't fuck with you. I won't fuck with Dante. I'm not suicidal!"

"Yeah," said Nero, pulling his car into a spot along the street. "I believe only one of those statements."

He didn't have to physically pull Exultans out of the car, at least, or up to the door; the demon followed him meekly. There Nero turned and fixed it with a hard look.

"Dante is ... he's drugged," said Nero, and it was harder to say those words than he'd expected. "I need you to get it out of his system."

The devil stared. "... oh," it said, and then cautiously, "What's he on?"

"He's not _on_ anything. Some demon attacked him and poisoned him, and now he's high and can't do anything. I need you to fix that."

"... oh," said Exultans again, as Nero opened the door and pulled the thing inside with him. "That's not really ... what I do."

"It's what you're doing today," Nero told him.

It was dark inside the office, but not too dark to see that Dante was where Nero had left him, laying on his back on the couch with his eyes closed. Those black eyes slid open when the door was closed and the light shut out; moments later Dante started to laugh.

Exultans tried to hang back at the door, so Nero took him by the arm and dragged him forward. "I'm a bond breaker," the demon was saying. "I don't do detox."

Nero glared. "He has a bond. You need to break it."

"Unless he's hooked on this poison, or whatever, I don't know what I can do for him."

Dante was laughing so hard now he'd almost rolled right off the couch; Nero pushed him back up onto it and sat down next to his head with one hand on Dante's chest. "In that case I have no use for you at all and I may as well kill you now."

"I don't know what you want me to do! I'm a bond breaker, and that's _all_ I am! I mean, I can try, I guess ..." Exultans did come to crouch next to Dante, and tried to take the devil hunter's hand. Dante had other ideas, though, and an instant later he had Exultans by the hair, shoving the creature's face toward the floor. Exultans squawked and flailed, grabbing Dante by the wrist to try to ease some of the pressure on its hair.

"You brought this ... here?" asked Dante; his laughter was slowing now, becoming less mad.

"Someone has to fix this," said Nero. "If this demon can't, then I don't know what to do."

The last few words came out weakly, plaintively ... much more so than Nero had wanted. He just didn't know what else to do! If this didn't work ... if Dante never got better ...

Dante looked up at him, the thin rim of blue around each pupil glowing in the light of Nero's right hand. He said nothing more, and when Nero moved to pry Exultans' hair out of his hand, he released the demon.

Exultans backed up, putting some distance between itself and the devil hunters. "Let me think about this," it said, rubbing its head where Dante had yanked its hair. "You said he was drugged?"

"I wasn't there," said Nero. "The story is that he was out on a job and a demon attacked him, cut him, and got some kind of poison into him. He's been like this since last week." And Nero couldn't tell if he was getting better. He didn't seem to be getting any better.

"Okay. Okay. Let me think about this."

While the demon mulled things over, Nero filled a glass with water and helped Dante to sit up so the older hunter could drink it. He kept an eye on Exultans, but the demon seemed to take his threats seriously and didn't try to run out, instead crouching on the floor and looking pensive.

This had to work. It had to.

Eventually Exultans said, "I need to check his blood. Can you, ah ... help me with that?"

"I guess."

Dante's laughing fit seemed to be finished for the moment, so Nero tried to explain that he needed a little blood. All that earned him was confusion, though, so he decided to just prick Dante in the arm with his talons. The older hunter barely reacted to the pain of it, and watched with curiosity as four welts of blood swelled up from the four pricks before they closed.

"Interesting," said Dante. Nero wiped the blood off with his glowing fingers, and then offered the little sample to Exultans, who touched it, rubbed it between its fingers, smelled it ... and then licked it.

"Oh, wow," it whispered, its voice deepening. "You hybrids are _amazing."_

Nero slapped it in the face to knock the fingers out of its mouth. "Stop that," he said, disgusted.

The devil took the reprimand without complaint. "I suppose I can think of this as being like a bond. Like, the poison is ... bound to him. That's one way of looking at it, I guess. I don't know if I can break it, but I can try."

Nero ran his fingers through Dante's hair. "You had better succeed."

"I'll try, but this is way outside my routine."

Exultans tried to take Dante by the hand again, and again Dante wasn't having it, grabbing Exultans by the wrist instead and _twisting._ The devil cried out in pain and curled around, instinctively trying to keep its wrist from breaking; Nero had to intervene to make Dante let go. Once he got Exultans free, the devil backed up a few paces.

"I need to touch him to do this," it said. "If he's going to keep attacking me, I can't do anything."

"Get back over here," Nero told it, and it slinked back over to the couch.

"I deserve hazard pay for this," it muttered.

It took some persuasion to get Dante to hold still; he was _not_ up for some demon holding his hand, and he had a hard time understanding why it was necessary. Nero explained it, in small words, six times, before Dante would tolerate it.

With Dante sitting semi-upright, Exultans knelt on the floor in front of the devil hunter with both of its hands on his, and began to whisper. Nero didn't recognize the language; it wasn't English, and it didn't seem to be the same devil-tongue that Dante spoke. The words moved together like liquid – if they were even words – the syllables flowing freely from one into the next. The demon's voice was low, its sibilant whisper an undercurrent in the air.

Dante quickly went still, no longer trying to evade the demon's touch. After a few minutes Exultans looked up, and the two devils stared at each other, inky-black to bright green.

In the darkened room, with Nero sitting off to one side, it looked weirdly intimate, for all that their only contact was holding hands. Something about their expressions – Dante looked slightly astonished, Exultans very intense - or the way Exultans knelt before Dante ... something about it seemed almost ... reverent.

Humans sometimes worshiped gods, and sometimes worshiped Sparda, Nero thought. What did demons worship?

It seemed to go on forever, but Nero didn't dare look away; it gradually dawned on him that he had no idea what this demon was doing to Dante. He only knew what he'd asked that it do, but what if it had other powers and was using a sinister one right now? Nero would have no way to know.

He supposed he'd just have to trust in his threats to the creature, because he was out of other ideas besides just waiting and hoping. So that was another little worry to join the first one. Maybe he should have done nothing. Maybe he should have just been patient and waited.

After a long time, at least an hour, Dante made as if to pull his hand away. Exultans just gripped it tighter, and Dante gave up. Then the demon said, "Cut him."

"What?" asked Nero, not sure he'd heard that right.

"On his hand." Exultans' voice was strained. "I've got the poison in his hand. Cut him and let it out."

"What are you doing?" asked Dante. The words came slowly, but they weren't slurred, and Dante's voice had lost its resonance.

"Cut him before I lose it," said Exultans. It turned Dante's hand toward Nero; the flesh was weirdly pale.

Not knowing what else to do, Nero laid his right hand over Dante's and the demon's, and pressed a claw into the meat at the base of Dante's thumb. Instead of blood the wound oozed an oily whitish fluid, thick and horrible.

"Ow," said Dante, but he didn't try to pull away. Exultans continued to whisper, and more of the fluid pulsed out of Dante's flesh; Nero put his left hand over his mouth, nauseated by the sight of it. There seemed to be so much of it, trickling down Dante's hand and dripping onto the floor. A couple of tablespoons, at least, before the fluid began to tinge pink with blood and the wound began to close.

Exultans whispered a little more poison out of Dante before the cut sealed, and Nero wondered if he should puncture another. Before he could decide, Dante yanked his hand free of the demon's hold.

"Thanks," said Dante, and he popped the demon in the face with his fist, sending Exultans sprawling to the floor.

* * *

Dante didn't attempt to explain what it had been like to be demon-drugged, and Nero didn't really want to know anyway, so they didn't discuss that. Instead, once it was established that Dante was, if not at one-hundred-percent, at least back in possession of his faculties and coordination, they tried to decide what to do with Exultans.

Dante had knocked the creature cold, and while it was senseless on the floor Nero argued that it would be better to just kill it now. "Who knows what it might tell other demons," was Nero's position. "We don't want others coming in and poisoning you, too."

"I don't think that's a common ability," said Dante. "I'd think I would have seen it before now."

"Still," said Nero. "Just to be safe."

"I don't know. I kind of feel like I owe it a favor." Dante nudged the demon's shoe with his own. "What made you think of dragging this in here?"

"You were drugged. Its job is to get drugs out of people."

Dante laughed, and there was a mad edge to it that made Nero think that maybe the poison wasn't completely gone. "Well, kid, I don't want to kill it. So let's not." He moved to tug on Exultans' shirt collar, pulling it down to expose the black chain still locked around the thing's throat. Exultans reacted to the touch, making a little whimpering sound and reaching up to put a hand to its face where Dante had punched it.

"I guess you've been reprieved," Nero told the demon, annoyed. It didn't seem to really be aware yet, though.

Dante went to open the drapes, and although he flinched a little from the waning sunlight, his eyes were blue again. "How long was I fucked up?" he asked.

"Trish said it's been since last Saturday."

"And today is?"

"... Saturday."

"Damn." Dante scratched at his jaw. "Nobody bothered to give me a shave in a week?"

"I thought you looked good that way," said Nero. "You're lucky I didn't decide to play dress-up with you, and put you in a pink dress."

"Maybe you should have. I can rock pink, you know."

Exultans began to stir on the floor, making a pitiful little moaning sound. "I suppose I should take this back to Broadway," said Nero.

"No," said Dante. "It's getting too late. Stay inside. I'm sure Exultans knows how to use the bus."

Nero didn't like that but he couldn't disagree; if there was even a chance of outwitting the demon that had targeted them, he'd take it. Walking up to the window next to Dante, Nero said nothing. That knot of fear was untying itself, easing ... not going away completely, though, because he didn't know what Exultans had done, exactly. Nevertheless, it was a positive relief to have Dante upright and aware, and standing at his side.

Slowly, Dante slid his right hand into Nero's left. Nero laced their fingers together, and leaned against Dante's shoulder.

With the demon on the floor in a questionable state of consciousness, he didn't want to admit to anything like having been afraid that Dante would never be himself again. It was nevertheless comforting to have Dante on his feet again, and Nero had to resist the urge to slide into the curve of his lover's arm.

"We need to talk about this later," he said quietly.

"Yeah, maybe." Dante freed his hand and ran it down Nero's back. "I think I need a shave first, though."


	6. Chapter 6

The following morning, Dante woke from a confused dream about fighting devils to soft lips on his own. Still half-immersed in his dream, he twisted and rolled to get atop the devil kissing him and pin it beneath him.

"Dante," said the devil quietly, as Dante's vision cleared and he saw that it was Nero.

That made sense. It was very early, the light in the window still gray and thin. Dante settled where he was, with Nero's body held down by his own, and kissed the kid's mouth. It was a savage kiss at first, hard and invasive, but although Nero took Dante's tongue without complaint he didn't kiss back with the same kind of energy, so the kiss gradually softened. Eventually the realization drifted through Dante's mind that Nero wanted gentle kisses, and he thought he could be generous; there was no doubt in his mind that this devil would submit to whatever Dante wanted, so there was no need to prove it. Dante kissed Nero softly, and Nero sighed a moaning little sigh, running his hands – soft skin and warm armor – up Dante's naked back.

"Dante," said Nero again, when Dante kissed down to the devil's shoulder. "Say something." But Dante saw no need to take orders, and his only response was a snarl and a warning nip to the side of the kid's neck. Nero quieted immediately, lifting his chin to display more of his throat for Dante to tear out if he chose. Dante bit down, and the devil under him moaned again, melting against him in complete submission. Yes, Dante could be generous.

There were no more words after that, only two more bites to reinforce whose will was going to be followed here, then more of those soft kisses that Nero seemed to want so badly. Dante was almost painfully hard, and he could feel Nero's erection, hot against his thigh, so he shifted his hips to bring them together. The devil beneath him gasped, and tried to get his left hand between them, but Dante nipped Nero's lower lip and locked their hips together until he gave up. It was just too comfortable the way they were, warm skin against warm skin, cock against cock, for Dante to want to change the way they lay. Nero relaxed again, accepting Dante's control, and was rewarded with more soft kisses.

It was the easiest thing in the world for Dante to slowly grind his hips against Nero's, compressing their trapped erections and rubbing them against skin and against one another. It felt good – not amazing, not intense, but pleasurably slow to match the slow kissing – and the kid seemed to like it. He buried the fingers of his left hand in Dante's hair, the talons of his right going down Dante's back with the lightest of scratches, coming to rest on Dante's rear.

That was it for some long, indeterminate time, just leisurely kisses and leisurely pleasure, until Nero made a soft sound into Dante's mouth and raised his hips a touch. The shift increased the sensation between them, and the next grind of Dante's hips ended with a sharp, involuntary thrust against the devil under him. Nero responded with a thrust of his own, sucking now on Dante's tongue, hard and demanding. Dante growled; there was something else the kid could be sucking if he wanted to that badly.

Nero didn't seem to know what to do when Dante lifted off of him, so Dante rolled over to recline with his back to the bed's headboard and pushed the kid's head down. Nero got it then; he knelt between Dante's legs and bent down, and took Dante into his mouth, and it felt ... Dante snarled, his hands fisting wads of bed sheet as Nero applied his tongue around the sensitive ridge, and then sucked hard.

There was never _not_ a thrill in screwing this powerful demon, but it was _intensely_ arousing when Nero went down on him with such enthusiasm. Watching his own cock slide into and out of the kid's mouth sharpened his lust, brought another snarl to his throat, and quickened his breath. It was difficult not to fuck the kid in the mouth; Nero serviced him so eagerly that Dante thought the kid might actually enjoy that.

The climb to orgasm was gradual at first, then abruptly quick; Dante came suddenly, teeth bared as Nero made a satisfied sound around his cock. The kid kept sucking at him, though, heightening the pleasure until it became too much and Dante had to push him away. Nero shifted to kissing Dante's thighs, and Dante just lay back to enjoy that. In some sense he knew that Nero was jacking off, but couldn't bring himself to care. After a while that seemed to resolve itself, and Nero gave Dante a gentle kiss similar to the one that had woken him earlier.

"I love you," Nero whispered, when Dante was nearly asleep again.

Dante woke for the second time that morning when the sun was much higher and the room bright. Nero was nowhere nearby; Dante was able to just stretch and laze around a bit with his eyes closed before getting up.

Eventually he smelled breakfast, though, so he got up and got dressed so he could go downstairs. After he had some pants on, but before he went through the door, he had a sudden dizzy spell and caught himself against the wall. It passed quickly, though, so he didn't think about it very hard.

"What are you making?" Dante asked as he came down the stairs.

"Eggs," said Nero. "Want some?"

Really, what Dante wanted was some pizza, but a bird in hand and all that. "Yes," he said. "Thank you."

Nero was behind the bar, cooking with a frying pan on the hot plate; Dante came to sit at the bar. The kid looked really good, with his hair mussed and still damp from his shower, and no shirt on. Dante didn't mind just sitting there watching him carefully flip an omelet over in the pan.

"So how do you feel?" asked Nero. "Normal again?"

"Mostly," said Dante, deciding not to mention the dizzy spell. He'd worry about it if it ever repeated itself. "Why?"

"Lady called." Nero shrugged, and turned the omelet onto a plate and put the plate in front of Dante. "She has some demons she wants us to kill."

"Oh?" Dante looked around for a fork until Nero handed him one, but then paused. "Didn't you make this for yourself, kid?"

"You take it." Nero was cracking more eggs into a bowl. "I'll make another."

Well, okay. Dante cut out a bite with the side of his fork and tasted it; there was cheese and sausage in it.

"She'd actually called with this one while you were out of it," said Nero, "but I didn't care then. She gave it to Trish, and Trish went out there and didn't find anything. But the demons are there, she says. She wants us to give it a shot."

"Does she." Trish had a good nose for devils; Dante wondered how they'd evaded her. "Where are they?"

"Get this," said Nero. "They're hanging around the South Run Mall. It's mall security that spotted them. No missing people yet, that anyone knows about anyway."

"Interesting." Dante watched Nero move while he ate, only half-thinking about the demons. "Are they actually _in_ the mall?"

"No idea. Lady didn't say."

"That would be pretty funny, if they were disguised as mall-walkers." Dante could picture it: some seventy-year-old retiree in expensive sneakers hustling around the mall, then transforming into a hulking monster when confronted. It was enough to make Dante laugh to himself. The laugh came out a little weird, and Nero turned to eye him.

"You okay, there?"

"Sure, kid," said Dante, trying to stifle another laugh. "Just had a ..." He put his hand over his mouth to get himself under control. "Heh heh, hmph. Just had a funny thought. Ignore me." He looked straight at Nero and tried to put on a convincing expression, but the kid so obviously wasn't buying it that Dante just dissolved again into crazed laughter.

Nero watched suspiciously as Dante laughed it out of his system. "Not sure what's funny about demons eating mall-walkers," said Nero after Dante was down to the occasional chuckle.

"Not _eating_ them, kid, just being them." Dante couldn't suppress one last giggle.

"I think maybe you should pass on this one. You're not all the way well yet."

"Pshhh." Dante dug into the omelet, before it could get cold. "I'm fine, kid."

"You're not acting fine."

"I'm fine." And unless the dizziness came back, Dante was going to believe that. "Not my fault you're hilarious."

"Didn't realize you felt that way about me." Nero flipped the omelet in the pan. "I'm coming with you."

Now _that_ was interesting. "You up to it?"

"I think I'm more up to it than you are. We're both kind of a mess, but I feel like your mess is bigger than mine."

Dante almost reassured Nero again that he was fine, but stopped himself. If Nero wanted to come on a job, Dante wasn't going to do anything to discourage that. "All right," he said. He didn't miss the pensive way Nero pressed his lips together, though, so he added, "It'll be nice to have someone watching my back. I don't know how these things evaded Trish. She's pretty competent."

"Lady said the fee is fifteen-hundred," said Nero. "I told her to keep it and write it off what we owe her."

That seemed low for a major mall, but stuff that came through Lady with a fee already attached was hard to re-negotiate. Dante shrugged. "That's fine," he said. "We'll leave after I clean up. Thanks for breakfast."

"Thanks for eating something other than pizza," said Nero, sliding the second omelet onto a plate.

* * *

The mall had only opened an hour earlier when they got there, and it wasn't very busy yet, so Nero had no trouble finding a parking spot. They left their swords in the car and went for a walk through the building, just to see if Dante was right and the demons were disguised as mall-walkers. They saw nothing, and Dante sensed nothing besides Nero.

Dante stopped at a kiosk outside the food court to buy a cookie, and he asked the teenager staffing it if she'd seen anything weird around lately.

"Define weird," she asked, as she handed Dante his cookie.

"Weird like demons," said Nero.

She just laughed. "Yeah, demons."

"How about any strange noises," said Dante, "or smells, or people who seem like they don't know how anything works. Maybe strange lights at night."

"You're really weird," she said with a smile. "Will there be anything else?"

After they walked away, Nero asked, "Am I weird, Dante?" He reached over and broke off a piece of Dante's cookie for himself.

"I'm pretty sure she was calling me weird and not you."

"Well, we already know that there's something wrong with you," said Nero.

"There's nothing wrong with me that can't be fixed with regular fights and daily blow jobs," said Dante, to which Nero snorted. "We should start sparring again, like we used to. That would be almost as good as killing shit."

"Maybe."

They left the mall and walked around the exterior of the building next, and when they came around the corner Dante started to eye the outlots. The buildings were between the mall and the road and were mostly restaurants, but there was a mini-strip mall here and a bookstore there. One building had been a toy store, but now the walls were faded and the name of the store was told only in the ghostly outline around the now-removed letters; the restaurant next door to it also looked empty. Dante pointed it out to Nero.

"I'm sure Trish noticed that," said the kid.

"I am, too," said Dante, "but it's worth a look."

"I want my sword first."

They retrieved their weapons from the car and walked across the parking lot; when he got within thirty feet of the building, Dante became sure there were devils inside. They probably knew he was out here, too, but wouldn't be reckoning on Nero.

"Why don't you go around back?" Dante told the kid. "I'll go in the front." Nero nodded, and without a word he hefted his sword over his shoulder and went to circle the toy store's empty parking lot. Dante watched him until he disappeared behind the building, and then went to the front door. What had been glass automatic doors were now boarded-up with plywood and stationary; Dante kicked one of them in.

The musty smell of devil was faint inside the building, but unmistakable. Something skittered when Dante pushed his way into the vestibule, and a thin demonic voice echoed from the interior. _"It must be him,"_ the voice said in the devils' language. A deeper voice rumbled something Dante couldn't make out.

The space inside the building felt enormous without the store's shelves and such in place, like a warehouse or something; far toward the rear, sickly violet light spilled out of a doorway. The footsteps of several creatures were racing that direction, and Dante suddenly realized why Trish hadn't been able to find these things. He sprinted that way, Rebellion in one hand, Ebony drawn into the other.

A sudden clash of weapons echoed across the building, presumably as Nero found something back there to fight. The shadow of something long and spindly passed between Dante and the glowing doorway, and Dante stepped through space to reach it before it could escape. He startled the devil when he appeared in front of it, but it didn't have time to do more than flinch before Dante drove Rebellion straight through its torso. Another shadow leapt into the doorway, and a third went down just before the threshold when Dante shot it through the head. A fourth devil jumped over its dying colleague to reach the doorway.

Off in the darkness Nero made a furious sound, and then the darkness lit up with a wreath of flame from the kid's weapon.

Dante reached the doorway just as a fifth devil scrambled through it, and he turned to see if there were any others, intending to cut off their escape. He saw nothing else, besides the brained demon clawing at the floor in its death throes, but the building was so dim it was hard to tell otherwise. The light of Nero's weapon went out with the wet thud of metal meeting flesh.

"Check the rest of the building," said Dante, raising his voice a bit to carry. The gate behind him was making the bile rise in his throat, and he turned to look at it. Unlike the crack that he and Nero had tried to close, this one led to a dark thicket of dead-looking trees. It was impossible to know how many devils had gone through the gate before Dante had gotten close enough to see them doing it; there could have been a dozen or more, and he and Nero between them had taken out only three.

He could hear and feel Nero walking around as he looked through the gate, and he presumed the kid was sweeping the building as asked. If there was anything else here, Nero would find it.

How many devils had escaped? They seemed to have expected him, but why? Dante thought about going through the gate to look for those answers. Maybe he could catch one of the escapees; surely they wouldn't expect him to follow them, and they might be stopped somewhere just out of sight. Dante put a hand over his mouth to hold down the nausea, although that should mostly resolve once he was on the other side of the barrier.

It was actually on the tip of his tongue to ask Nero if he wanted to come along when the doorway slammed shut.

"Damn," said Dante. He reached out and ran a hand over the wall where the doorway had been. It was so dark now he could see effectively nothing, but his hand and his stomach told him that this gate, unlike the crack north of the old city, was completely closed.

Nero, at least, was visible when Dante turned around, the glow of his arm standing out starkly against the blackness now that the only other source of light was gone. "How many got away?" asked the kid.

"Don't know," said Dante. "At least three."

The reek of petroleum rose sharply through the stale air as Nero approached. "That sucks," he said. "At least they're gone."

"Yeah, but for how long?" Dante turned and ran his hand over the wall behind him again; he felt no connection at all, but this gate had been opened at least twice already. It was too dark to see if there was an opening array on the floor here, so Dante beckoned Nero closer. "Hold your arm down here and let me see the floor, would you?"

"I'm not a flashlight," said Nero, but he obediently came and spread his hand out to shed some light on the flooring. Dante crouched to get a good look.

It was as he'd half-suspected. "No marks," he said. "They're not controlling this gate from this side."

"What's that mean?" asked Nero.

"It's harder to open gates from the other side." Dante stood up. "Usually a strong demon will send a weak slave through a small crack and have it open a larger gate for its master from this side. If they're opening gates this big from that side at will ... I don't want to think about what's powering them."

Nero ran his glowing talons over the wall, in much the same way Dante had done, checking for any sign that the doorway was still present. Apparently he also found nothing. "Huh," he said.

"Nothing else to do here," said Dante, kicking the dead devil that had almost made it through. "Can you light our way out?"

"Hah," said Nero, but he raised his hand to do it.

* * *

The drive home was uneventful, but the car trapped the smell of burned fuel and, faintly, devil blood coming off Nero. Dante opened his window to dilute it some, but not enough so that he wouldn't have to breathe it. How long had it been since he and Nero had sparred? Dante couldn't recall; the last time had been at some point prior to the kid's flashbacks starting up, but the exact timing of it escaped him. When had Nero last tried to kill him? Probably around the same time.

If Dante knew he'd get angry if he let himself think about it too much, so instead he let himself slip into a little daydream about provoking the kid when they got home. How difficult would it be?

Dante decided to find out.

When they arrived home and had parked, Dante let Nero walk ahead of him toward the door; just as Nero set foot on the building's front step, Dante drew back with Rebellion and slashed. He aimed low, toward Nero's leg, just in case the kid was too depressed to be paying attention, but he should have known better. Red Queen's tip dropped by lightning reflex to the ground to block it.

Nero spun around, moving down onto level ground with a wary scowl. "The hell, Dante," he said.

"I wasn't going to hurt you," said Dante. "I was just going to hamstring you and then have my way with you."

"What, right here on the street?"

"Sure. Why not?" Dante flicked Rebellion up, and Nero again deflected the wide blade before it could clip him in the chin.

"Because that would be a dick move," said Nero. "That's why not. Also, saying that wouldn't hurt is misleading." Nevertheless, he feinted toward Dante's neck, and then slashed low instead; his blade would have caught Dante in the knee if Dante hadn't twitched out of the way. "I don't know if I'm in the mood to play."

"Then don't play," said Dante. His next attack was a full-power swing directly toward Nero's shoulder, which Nero only narrowly evaded.

Regardless of whether Nero wanted to spar, he was ready to defend himself; he counterattacked viciously, slamming Dante's blade down and then slashing upward with Red Queen aflame. Dante stepped backward, and took the force of the next downward strike on Rebellion, and the next. This was good, this was positive. Dante forced Nero backward with a few fast thrusts of his blade, and Nero went sideways onto the street rather than let himself be backed into a wall. The kid's instincts were intact, and a little anger was even starting to color his cheeks and his frown. It made Dante happy to see it.

The air became saturated with the smell of fuel and smoke. Nero didn't have Dante's raw supernatural power, but he could be extremely fast when he needed to be. Dante backed the kid up down the street, and then abruptly found himself slammed into the pavement by a cuff from Nero's right hand that he didn't see coming.

Nero didn't follow up, standing a good distance back while Dante picked himself up off the sidewalk. "Damn, Dante. What the hell."

"Good one," said Dante, brushing off his coat and licking a bit of blood off his lip. He didn't think much off it, though, until he looked up and saw the absolute astonishment written across Nero's face. "What?"

The astonishment morphed instantly into real anger. "Are you _letting_ me win, you asshole?"

"I hadn't planned on it."

Nero made a frustrated sound, and walked straight past Dante toward the front door. "I don't need to be coddled."

It hadn't been Dante's intention to coddle anyone, and he hadn't let Nero hit him on purpose. But, now that he thought about it, he had no explanation for how it had happened. "I guess my mind must have wandered for a second," he said, the only idea that came to him.

Nero stopped at the door and turned around, looking seriously angry now. "Your mind _wandered_ for a second? So I'm not even worth your full attention, you say?"

"That's not it," said Dante. "You know that's not it."

"You're such a jerk." Nero flung open the door and went inside.

It was actually kind of nice to see the kid angry. Dante followed Nero into the building; that hadn't gone the way he'd expected, but the end result was Nero acting somewhat normally for once so Dante couldn't be mad about it.

While Nero sat down with his weapon to clean it, Dante put away his weapons and called to order pizza, and then went to flip through the stacks of binders that Nero had brought back from Fortuna. Some were black, some were blue, some white, and each one had a sticker on the spine with a typewritten label to describe the contents. _Society,_ said the first one Dante examined. _Powers and abilities,_ said another.

"I thought you were going after gate-opening notes," said Dante, as he opened the society one. His memory of what he and Nero had discussed before the kid had left was a little blurry, but he recalled that much.

"I grabbed whatever I could find," said Nero. "If it was even somewhat relevant, I took it." He gestured toward a stack of white binders at the end of the couch.

Dante went to check them out, and found at least half a dozen with his named typed on them. "Ahhh-hhhh," he said. "My fan club's legacy."

"Sure, if you want to call it that."

Looking through more of the stash, Dante found two labeled _Yamato,_ and went back to his desk with them. Yamato wouldn't help in closing a gate, but he was nevertheless curious how the Order had gotten their hands on his brother's sword. "Did you find anything useful while you were there?" he asked.

"I only skimmed a few. I didn't take the time to do a lot of studying." Nero sat back on the couch, Red Queen half-disassembled on the coffee table in front of him, and cast Dante an unreadable look. "You _were_ letting me win," he said. "Weren't you?"

"I hadn't planned on it." Near the front of the first binder, Dante found a series of detailed drawings of the condition in which the Order had found Yamato. It was disquieting to see the sword broken, the hilt wrappings torn to pieces as though something had chewed on the weapon, even secondhand and only in a sketch.

"I see."

The pizza eventually came, and Nero finished up with Red Queen and picked up a binder of his own to review. In the second file, Dante eventually found detailed notes on how they'd located Yamato; they'd somehow (he presumed it was in another set of notes) realized that a devil arm would help them open gates and keep them open, so they'd concocted a spell to find a few for themselves. Yamato was the second devil arm to be retrieved from the demon world.

The phone rang before Dante got much farther than that, and he kicked the receiver into his hand. "Devil May Cry," he said, frowning at the way Nero had stiffened.

"Dante," said Morrison. "How busy are you?"

_"Incredibly_ busy," said Dante, not liking the man's tone. "Far too busy to take whatever bullshit you're about to try to dump on me."

"Glad to hear it," said Morrison. "I hope that means you're making money, because I have something here that would be worth a thousand dollars if you took it."

That made Dante pause. He'd gotten lucky lately with high-paying jobs, but that luck would run out sooner or later. "What's the catch?"

"It's on a farm outside town."

That was quite a catch. "So it's _literally_ bullshit," said Dante.

"It's a horse farm, not a bull farm," said Morrison. "The client says that devils are killing her horses, and she obviously wants them stopped."

"I hope you left it open for me to renegotiate if these are valuable horses," said Dante. "I don't want to be rescuing million-dollar horses for a thousand bucks."

"I don't know what the horses are worth. If you want to try to renegotiate, feel free. Does this mean you're going?"

"Yeah, I suppose." Horses were living things, after all, and didn't deserve to be slaughtered by demons any more than humans did. Dante wrote down the contact information Morrison gave him and hung up.

Nero was watching him suspiciously by that point. "You're not going out again, are you?" asked the kid.

"Gotta rescue some horses," said Dante. "Unless you want it."

It looks for an instant like Nero was about to say yes, he'd take it, but then the kid balked; it was more than a little sad to watch him visibly think better of going out on his own. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to take a job right now," said Nero eventually. "You're not all the way better."

"It's all yours if you want it," said Dante again.

"No. That ... wouldn't be a good idea, either."

"Your choice." Dante holstered his guns and took down Rebellion off the wall. "Someone has to do it, though."

Nero dithered a moment, and then said, "I'll come with you."

* * *

They took the interstate north, past the beltways and the exurbs, finally reaching the rural-ish area in the next county over. Getting to the farm required going into the hills for a while and then leaving the main road following a gravel-paved path up to the farm gate. The weather was fine, so Dante had the window rolled down; he could have navigated his way there from the smell of horse manure alone.

Nero parked outside the gate, and then he and Dante walked up the path toward the barn. The client intercepted them with a guarded look on her face, but warmed to them as soon as Nero identified them as devil hunters.

"I've lost two animals in the past two days," she said. "The rest are skittish and scared. They know what's going on."

Dante doubted that horses understood what demons were, but allowed that they probably did know what death was. "Do you have the carcasses?" he asked.

She'd already had one of them hauled off, but the horse that had died the night before was still on the property, down in the pasture near a shallow creek about fifteen feet wide. Dante barely had to look to know it was a devil; a predator would have gone for the kill as quickly as possible, not ripped up the animal's hindquarters until it bled to death.

"Found him this morning," said the woman. "Heard nothing last night. I don't know how this happened without that horse screaming his head off, but ..." She paused and cleared her throat, but her voice was a little unsteady when she spoke again. "Went looking for him when he didn't come up the hill for breakfast. Found him right here. Found Big Red right over there yesterday morning."

Nero's voice was gentle when he said, "I'm sorry. We'll do what we can to find out what killed your horses."

"I'm locking them in the barn at night from now on," she said.

These didn't look like million-dollar horses, so Dante decided he'd just take the thousand bucks that had been offered. "Seen anything strange lately?" he asked the client while he looked at the mud along the bank of the creek. "Or smelled anything, or noticed anything at all?"

"No," she said. "Just that the horses seemed skittish over the past week or so. I couldn't say why, until, you know."

This area was a place where the horses forded the creek and the mud was thoroughly trampled by horse hooves, obscuring any other tracks that might have been there, although deep furrows marked where the dead horse had thrashed about. However, the direction the dead horse was facing – its nose toward the barn, its mauled rump toward the creek – told Dante how it had been attacked. "How was the other horse killed?" he asked.

"Same way, except that it had gone for Red's face," said the client, with a hitch in her voice.

"Which way was Red facing when you found it?" asked Dante. He pointed toward the creek. "That direction?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"What are you thinking?" asked Nero.

"That our devil might be lurking in the water," said Dante. He went down to the creek and poked Rebellion into the water, testing the solidity of the creek bottom. He felt solid ground under the top layer of mud, but couldn't reach very far without getting his boots wet.

Nero was looking at the dead horse. "The demon didn't eat anything," he said. "Just killing for sport, I suppose."

Dante walked up and down the creek for a few dozen yards, but there was no sense of _wrongness_ anywhere along it. If there was a gate here, it wasn't open now. "Let me ask you something," he said to the client. "How did you know to call my agent?"

"Oh," said the client. "Jimmy called me, Jimmy Barlow across the main road, I'd told him about Big Red and he called me this morning to tell me I should call a devil hunter. I laughed at him, but thought about it more, and, well. Here you are."

"Yes, here we are," said Dante, certain that if he were to inquire with Jimmy Barlow, the man would know absolutely nothing about any such phone call. "I think it would be a good idea if you did put your horses in the barn tonight. I'm going to stay with them."

"We're sleeping in the barn?" asked Nero, skeptical.

_"I'm_ sleeping in the barn," Dante told him. "You can sleep wherever you want."

"I get the hay," said Nero.

* * *

The barn was warm and smelled richly of straw and, once the horses were stabled for the evening, the animals themselves; Dante was almost getting used to the manure by that point. Their client offered them dinner, but Dante declined and Nero only accepted enough to be polite. She left some water and some cookies with them, just in case.

"I'll have breakfast for you in the morning," she told them before leaving them there. "Thank you. I hope you catch whatever did that to Big Red and Smokey."

"So what are the chances?" asked Nero, once she was gone. "If it came out of the water, shouldn't we be camping out next to the water?"

There were four horses sharing the barn with them, and all of them were restive and nervous. Dante didn't know if they were antsy because of the killings or because of him, but he stayed well back from the occupied stalls. "It'll come to us," he said, and turned out the barn light.

Nero spent some time trying to get comfortable sitting on the ground with his back to one of the walls; when he finally managed it, he turned down the sleeve of his coat and stuck his hand into his pocket to conceal the glow. Dante leaned against the wall of the tack room, arms crossed as he looked aimlessly into the darkness and waited.

After a while, Nero said, "So, Dante."

"So, Nero," Dante echoed back.

"I ran into some things in those notes. The Order knew you were sleeping with Lady."

An unexpected topic. "Did they."

"Yeah. I think they were planning to ... I don't know, kidnap her or something, to force you to go along with what they wanted."

Dante laughed. "She would have cleaned house."

Nero did not laugh. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe not. She's fully human, isn't she?"

"That's a really good question, actually," said Dante. "I've thought about it more than once. She doesn't _seem_ like she has any devil in her, well, before she got pregnant anyway. But there are a lot of hybrids, you know, with a very diluted heritage. I can sometimes tell by looking at them, but not always."

A long pause. "Then how can you tell, if not by looking?"

"Their blood smells a little devilish, if they happen to get cut or something. Otherwise I just don't know at all. Lady's blood doesn't have that devil smell to it, but it's possible that it's just so dilute in her that the smell is gone, too."

"Oh," said Nero. The kid sounded a little confused, but he didn't volunteer what was confusing him so Dante didn't worry about it.

After waiting for the question – or whatever – that didn't come, Dante continued, "Then I come to a question. If she has a devil in her family tree, but that devil is so far back I can't even smell it in her blood, how could it have enough influence to make her super-human? I don't think it could. So the conclusion I reached was that she is, in fact, fully human."

"The Order had a lot of demons," said Nero. "Do you think she could have fought off them all?"

"You doubt her?"

"Dante, _I_ had trouble with them. I did. You had less, but still a non-zero amount of trouble with them. Yes, I am doubting that a fully human person could have fended off all of them if they were determined to kidnap her."

"Pfft." But deep inside, Dante knew that there was a reason Lady had come to him with the Fortuna job in the first place. She knew her limits; she _had_ limits. "If she ever thought she was in trouble, she'd have called me."

"Yeah, if she had time." Nero took his hand out of his pocket and stretched; then the light went back out when he stuffed his hand back into his coat. "What would you have done, if they'd gotten to Lady?"

Interesting question, and not the good kind of interesting. Dante wondered what sort of answer the kid actually wanted. "I don't know," he said. "It would depend on the situation I found myself in. I wouldn't have let them hurt her, though."

"I see."

"I'm not with her now, though, kid. You know that."

"Yeah." A rough sound, like Nero kicking the ground. "I know. I just ..." The sound repeated; Nero was definitely scuffing his heel. "I don't know, I'm just worrying over something that didn't even happen, I guess. No one is invincible. Not even you."

"I never said I was."

Nero went silent, then, leaving Dante to his own thoughts on the topic. He hadn't known that, about Lady and the Order, and he wasn't sure he really needed to know it. But, whatever ... Nero had needed to talk about it for whatever reason, and Dante could live with that.

But he hadn't been able to give Nero a solid answer, and he wasn't sure he had one. What _would_ he have done? His relationships really were his biggest weakness. He didn't regret getting involved with humans or with anyone else, and life would be very bleak without friends, but he knew he put them in danger sometimes and he wasn't actually okay with that.

Dante eventually said, "I wouldn't let anyone get hurt on my account."

"Is that really a hard and fast rule?" asked Nero. "Would you really have gone with the Order quietly if they'd threatened Lady?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then what _are_ you saying?"

"I don't know what I would have done. I do know that death is forever, and as long as everyone is still alive then something positive can be done."

"The Order killed a lot of people on Fortuna," said Nero, then his voice went softer. "I wouldn't say it was my fault, exactly, but there are things I could have done differently, and then maybe some of that wouldn't have happened. Like, I could have handed Yamato over to you when you asked for it. I don't think His Holiness would have gotten it off of you."

"Probably not," said Dante. "You didn't know that was going to happen, though, and neither did I. You didn't do anything wrong that I didn't do wrong, too."

"That's the point, though. Nobody can know for sure that they're doing the right thing, ever. What if you did something to save Lady, the way I did something to save Kyrie, and thousands of other people died as a result?"

This was such a weird conversation to be having, especially in a warm, dark barn with four horses at the far end of the building making their horse noises and snorting occasionally. Nero's tone also seemed oddly depersonalized, like he was talking on a purely intellectual level about something that had happened to another person. "We all do the best we can, kid," said Dante. "That's all we can do."

Nero offered no response to that, and eventually Dante stopped expecting one. After a while, he heard Nero moving around a little, settling where he was, probably intending to nap or something. Dante didn't want to sleep, so he stayed on his feet.

* * *

Despite his wish, Dante must have nodded off a bit anyway, because he suddenly jolted awake when the barn door squeaked; he was certain that a strange devil was nearby.

The horses started to make frightened sounds in their stalls, but they were behind Dante so he ignored them. The barn door drifted open, but then the devil hesitated outside.

Dante unhitched his sword from his back as Nero – also awake now – hopped silently to his feet. The devil didn't enter the barn, no doubt sensing them as clearly as Dante could sense it; after a few moments, it began to back away.

The moonlight outside was bright now, as bright as daylight to Dante's dark-adapted vision. When Dante walked out of the barn he could see the demon clearly, a collection of thin legs probably twenty feet long, joined like a spider's with its knees above its body, which was only a foot or so in length. The creature strode away from the barn, down toward the creek, in perfect silence, and with no visible haste until Dante took a few steps toward it. Then it picked up its pace considerably, making for the water.

"Oh, no you don't," said Nero, and he began to sprint toward the fleeing devil. He wasn't able to catch it; when Dante came around the curve of the trail toward the creek fording, he found Nero pacing, frustrated, at the water's edge.

The center of the creek was ... missing, replaced with a horizontal crack that was glowing eerie purple. The water didn't spill down into the crack, but sort of _stopped_ at the edge of it.

"Dammit," said Nero when Dante approached. "It got away."

Dante had expected that. He walked toward the crack and paused on the creek's bank to peer down into it, swallowing against the bile that rose in his throat at the _wrongness_ of the gate. There was a field of what looked like corn on the other side, the stalks twisting as though writhing, with the ground turned ninety-degrees to the ground in the human world.

"Hey, kid," said Dante. "Make sure you get our money, okay?"

"... what? Why?"

The gate wouldn't be open much longer. Dante sprang toward it from the creek bank, fell through, and then fell into a sideways roll when the direction of gravity abruptly changed the moment he was on the other side. Once he was back on his feet he looked back toward the gate opening, and saw Nero peering sideways through at him from the human world.

"Dante!" said Nero, his tone a little panicked, and then the gate slammed shut, turning into a bloodstained wooden wall inscribed with a gate-opening array.

Thin laughter began behind Dante, and Dante turned around to face it.

_"That was a mistake,"_ said the spidery demon, stepping out of the writhing corn.

"I guess we'll see," said Dante, sighting down Rebellion's blade at the demon. "You wanted me here, now I'm here." And that was suddenly so hilariously funny that Dante started to laugh.


End file.
